Distancing in peer review: how the epistemic subject relates to peers, paradigms, and process

• In Event: 40826 - Knowledge #2: Scientific and Social Scientific Knowledge

Abstract

The proposed paper stems from a larger study on how sociologists make sense of peer review as evaluated parties—as epistemic subjects. Work encouraging exploration of the multidimensionality of peer review and knowledge-making practices in the social sciences serves as a point of departure (Camic et al., 2011; Lamont, 2009) while philosophical work on “epistemic injustice” and related concepts like “epistemic confidence” and “epistemic worth” enables a deeper understanding of these relational, personal, and emotional dimensions with respect to knowledge-making—a deeper understanding of how professors can be devalued in their status as knowers (Fricker, 2007, 2017; Bacevic, 2021). Based on 25 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with faculty in elite sociology departments at American research universities, the proposed paper presents an analysis of a larger category of distancing that surfaces as professors discuss their manuscripts and the peer review process more broadly. As epistemic subjects discuss their manuscripts, instances in which epistemic subjects define themselves as other as well as instances when epistemic subjects define peer review to emphasize and expose its social construction emerge. These instances constitute actions that speak to a larger category of distancing. Distancing from peers and paradigms as well as constructing peer review as a game emerge as two major themes in which epistemic subjects enact distance, which appears to function to shield the epistemic subject from epistemic harm.

Author

• Taylor LiCausi, Stanford University