Writing in the Margins: A Feminist Examination of Power & Privilege in Academic Journal Publishing

Abstract

The central theme of this dissertation is equity in knowledge systems. I use academic publishing, in general, and peer-reviewed health and social science journals, in particular, to examine how power and privilege influence what we consider legitimate reality about the world around us. My research questions explore peer review as a system for judging knowledge claims and, by extension, knowers. I ask how power and privilege operate within and through academic journal peer review, how women and gender minorities from different social locations navigate journal peer review processes, and how journal peer review contributes to experiences of exclusion within and beyond the academy.

I draw on three theoretical frameworks: feminist political economy (Bedford & Rai, 2010; Bezanson & Luxton, 2014; S. V. Peterson, 2005), feminist science studies (Collins, 2002; Hammonds & Subramaniam, 2003; Haraway, 1988; Longino, 1988; Wyer et al., 2014), and critical disability studies (Erevelles, 2011; McRuer, 2006; Meekosha & Shuttleworth, 2009). First, I argue that peer review is labour, connected to broader systems of racial capitalist accumulation and exploitation of academic workers. Then, using reflexive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2022), I analyze data from social media and in-depth interviews to explore how structurally minoritized scholars experience peer review processes. Second, I use the figure of Reviewer 2 to explore how gatekeeping in peer review causes epistemic harm to minoritized scholars and censors critical perspectives. Third, I use the concept of crip time (Kafer, 2013; McRuer, 2006; Samuels, 2017; Sheppard, 2020) to understand how waiting as an embodied experience creates uncertainty for disabled and trans scholars, for whom time is out of sync with the neoliberal university and corporate publishing industry. Academics' experiences with journal policies, processes, and practices have rarely been the subject of critical examination. My dissertation demonstrates how feminist interrogations can deepen understandings about knowledge and labour systems.