Abstract
At Feminist Review, we believe that attending both to what is written in the pages of the journal and to how we do the work that makes the journal possible is crucial. Throughout the last few years, we have been actively examining our working practices and processes to align with and honour intersectional feminist values and care. These practices have an impact both on us at the journal and on those who engage with it.
We remain invested in revisioning our working practices and are committed to having these (often difficult) conversations. A plentiful archive—of discussion threads, meeting notes, processes, documents, policies—has emerged and continues to grow as a result of forging routes towards collaborative and collective intersectional working practices.
Here, we share this archive to offer a glimpse into our conversations, notes, ideas, provocations and visions from the past three years. 1 By ‘collective writing’, we mean pieces that we came together to work on, usually on a Google Doc, with multiple authors writing and editing at the same time. A number of these, appearing in their raw and unedited form, provide a snapshot into some of the behind-the-scenes conversations and labour that have led to where we are now.
To keep in mind, Summer 2021
At the height of the pandemic in the UK in 2020 and 2021, shortly after the Crisis of Care statement 2 and difficult questions surrounding the future of the collective, the six remaining collective members were thinking through the future of the journal and organisation.
We held ‘strategy days’ in Summer 2021 to consider our future and what steps we might take to get there. We began by thinking through some ground rules for the space and for ourselves.
Here are the first notes from this meeting, exploring these ground rules.
Safer Space Contract—a working document for us to write together, to express how we wanted to work in the space together. To be revisited whenever we needed to regroup and ground ourselves
About Minutes:
Documenting the strategy days: a few minutes for taking group minutes after conversation in order to note the key points; action points and agreed points; questions
Rotating minutes
Co-minuting, co-chairing
Screen breaks, bathroom breaks
Try to keep to time
If something’s not finished, pausing and reviewing (if people are okay to go on or continue another time). Acknowledging the conversations will keep going. At the end of each session, identifying the next step, knowing that we won’t be able to ‘complete’ discussions around most of these issues
Asking what the timelines are around individual conversations/issues, how we continue them with new people and how we might facilitate those
Where we are as a collective and how we go forward
Being able to stop the conversation in the moment if we can identify something is wrong: allowing for interruptions
Being conscious about bringing past energy into this space; trying to facilitate kind conversations
Worrying about mis-stepping and recognising anxiety but trying to move past it—but now acknowledging that we will hear one another with generosity and kindness
Thinking away from each other too and having space
Safe space contract, September 2021
Nine new editors joined Feminist Review in September 2021.
When we started working together as a new editorial team, we asked:
What do we want to create from this space?
How do we envision working together?
What do we need?
We had a few minutes to think about and share some ideas about what we wanted and needed from this space and organisation. Thus, we wrote silently together, seeing individually named—and anonymous—cursors moving about the page. The text appears here as anonymous contributions from the shared Google Doc.
patience
room for learning
room for errors
questions, clarification: we know where to go / people to turn to
room for errors
but also space and time to celebrate
how to support one another
room for learning from one another—not just work but our own contexts
accountability to authors, and to one another
slowing down—looking ‘inwards’ about what is going on in the moment / in the room
sustaining excitement and interest in the editing work
slowing down
to attend to what is happening in the moment, how hard that can be working in the academy
individual trajectories—not just linear, but across fields: how we can create a space to accommodate needs and be understanding about that
space that isn’t entrenched in existing matrices
we started with a question: where do we see FR going, where would we like it to go?
where we are and how/why this is happening at this juncture
trust in our imagination, what might drive us as a group when we don’t know where we are going?
feminist practice built on collective: it isn’t constraining our thinking about where we could go
needing time—doing the work as we go along
How we move forward together, April 2022
As a newly formed team, we were interested in reflecting on how FR as a journal has shifted in terms of personnel and praxis. As a diverse team of individuals, we were interested in learning from and listening to one another and sharing ideas about what a journal can be and offer.
In thinking through how we move forward together, one of our editorial team members came up with three questions to guide our reflections. Below are our notes from an editorial meeting, where we sat, writing together online over Zoom and a shared Google Doc. These are loosely unedited, so repetition and overlap appear.
How would you like to redefine feminist practice?
feminist practices should aim to offer powerful critiques and timely interventions in not only the macro-level social and political organising based on heteropatriarchy and neoliberalism, but also how they are reflected on the mundaneness of everyday life
Engaging forms of ‘feminist practice’ outside of academia. Supporting community projects and mutual aid groups that might not define themselves as ‘feminist’ but are engaged in feminist work. Forming bonds and alliances with organisations and individuals who are creating knowledge outside of academia
De-centring academia and supporting grassroots organising and community-led work that embodies feminist care and produces knowledges that are often not seen as ‘valid’
Autonomous from institutions which are embedded in and reflect hierarchies, racism, power and exclusion—something which cannot be assumed all feminists share
Doing and trying here what we wish to see ‘out there’
Publicly engaged, accessible
Radical! Defining what that means. Futurity and imagining what a feminist future looks like, and how we get there. Intersectionality continuing to be at the centre of what we do
What do you see as the future for FR?
Reimagining what ‘feminist academia’ is—the spaces it operates in, the questions it takes up, who it is in conversations with. Working against white supremacist, ableist, classist norms of academic institutions
A space to facilitate some of the movement and shape the directions that FR cares about through some events (in addition to being a journal alone)
Thinking about how we fit within traditional academic publishing models and being located behind a paywall. Making articles and open space pieces accessible to a wider audience
Collaborative ways of working across the editorial group on anything from public programmes to editing special issues and co-writing open space pieces or articles
A multi-sited, less HE-dominated space [agree with this so wholeheartedly]
A place we support each other as editors and authors
A space where sick, ill, disabled feminists can find community and ways to share and build knowledges and centre crip ways of educating, writing, being
How do we grapple with the tensions of working with publishers, paywalls, academic formats, metrics and also being a space that doesn’t centre academia, that is open and accessible, that is community-focused and supportive?
Endeavouring towards a non-exploitative, sustainable environment that builds on lived experiences (as opposed to forcing life into unrealistic boxes); sharing the lessons learned along the way too
Rethinking what is an academic space: moving beyond ideas of traditional academia, supporting work outside of boundaries of mainstream academia
I imagine FR to be a space not only for but also encouraging feminist theorising in regard to not only gender but also other social categories and organising mechanisms, such as coloniality, capitalism, the state, ableism and sanism and race/ethnicity. Also, as discussed earlier, FR honours and always remembers the contributions of feminist writers, teachers, theorists and activists of different generations
Feminisms’ prefigurative politics
Building on legacies of Black feminist protest and space-making within FR collective
Breaking boundaries between scholarship and activism: Open Space rethought as a space to document the work and legacies of activists and change-makers in communities
Cultivating curiosity and imagination
What strategies/ways of collectively working could we incorporate in our praxis?
A collective piece will be great exploring our visions
I think the journal could have a lexicon section as a way to reimagine some of the practices
More collaborative work with other disciplines through themed issues or other means
Transition to another running model (this is already an ongoing conversation happening now)
Slowing down, working against ableist norms of productivity
Not being complacent about shared principles or visions and to check in and continue to have collective conversations
Writing workshops for FR editors and potential authors—something also to consider for book reviews
Applying for funding to support shared research projects and public programmes
Regularly reflecting on our practice and how we’re working together
FR peer review honorariums, October 2021
Beginning with articles sent out for review from October 2021, Feminist Review began offering an honorarium for completed reviews for full-length articles. This is the 24 May 2022 blog post we wrote to explain the reasoning behind this decision. 3
Feminist Review greatly values the work of our reviewers. In recognition of the contribution of your expertise and labour, we are offering an honorarium of £130 for completed reviews. In extending this honorarium, we acknowledge that review work is not usually recognised and compensated by academic institutions. In addition, the widespread reality of precarious and zero-hour contracts affects a large proportion of individuals whose anonymised labour underpins academic publishing, including this journal, and thus financial compensation is not only fair in recognising the labour of the reviewer but in supporting their research and expertise.
Starting with articles sent out for review from October 2021, Feminist Review began offering an honorarium for completed reviews for full-length articles. The paragraph above appears in our invitation to potential Peer Reviewers, outlining in brief some of our reasons for offering an honorarium. Many of our peer reviewers have welcomed this intervention and recognition of this form of labour. In this blog post, we outline our reasons more fully. We define an honorarium as a one-time payment for services rendered.
Recognition of labour
In our recent conversations at Feminist Review, we continue to ask what it takes to make and run a non-exploitative journal. 4 This newly devised honorarium system, we believe, highlights—and attempts to respond to—one aspect of exploitation in academia.
Our initiative connects to existing debates relating to the payment of peer reviewers (see Nathan, 2014; Butchard et al., 2017; A collective of feminist and social justice editors, 2020; Siler, 2020; Brainard, 2021; Cheah and Piasecki, 2022). The work of our peer reviewers, their expertise and generosity in providing feedback to potential authors, is integral to the publication of the journal and the development of existing scholarship. By paying peer reviewers, we recognise that peer review is labour and therefore should be remunerated.
Shifting landscape
One of our peer reviewers wrote to us: ‘it is beyond frustrating that in an era when we are all expected to publish, publish, publish, the very system that ensures quality and that relies on collegial assessments is by and large relying on free or unrecognised labour’. This reviewer’s comment reflects the current dominant model of unpaid peer review work as fundamentally broken. Historically, full-time academic posts and their associated salary allowed/encouraged academics to participate in the wider research community, such that this sort of work (including peer review) was compensated through existing salaries. In other words, under an employment model wherein research and contribution to research activities are budgeted into an academic employee’s contract, review work is compensated.
However—and especially since 2012 in the UK, with the drastic elimination of government funding to humanities and social sciences (Preston, 2015; Bulaitis, 2021; Weale, 2021)—permanent contracts are no longer the only model of employment in which academics are finding themselves, and there has been an increasing move towards the casualisation of labour (UCU, 2020, 2021; HESA, 2022). Given newer models of academic participation, including precarious contracts (temporary and zero-hour), short-term posts and posts without research funding, often scholarly participation, such as peer reviewing, is not paid for by institutions. Furthermore, these shifts have ‘all focussed upon increasing research “productivity” and “output”’ (Bryson and Barnes, 2001) that requires visibility and overt attachment to an individual’s named academic profile. This makes the anonymised labour of the reviewer that undergirds the integrity of the peer review process all the more challenging to sustain, and in turn the integrity of scholarly publishing.
Implications on knowledge production
Feminist Review is committed to ensuring the peer review process is as robust and ethical as possible. We have a triple-anonymised submission process (where in addition to authors and peer reviewers remaining unknown to one another, authors and their affiliations are anonymous to journal editors) and advocate the COPE: Committee on Publication Ethics (2017) guidelines to reviewers before deciding to undertake a review. We ask that reviewers support our authors by providing unbiased and constructive reviews to the best of their abilities. The anonymisation process, whereby not only authors but also editors working on a piece are anonymous to reviewers being asked to undertake a review, assuages worries relating to ‘paying’ for a particular outcome of accept or reject.
Peer reviewers play a critical role in advancing scholarship. The time and effort it takes to produce a constructive and generous review should not be underestimated. The implications of not paying reviewers presents a much greater risk for knowledge production. Many, particularly precarious and independent scholars, may be unable to undertake this work without payment, which in turn limits the field of potential reviewers. This serves to reinforce existing racialised, gendered, classed and ableist hierarchies within academia, whereby established (and often tenured) academics are continually asked to review new scholarship. This might close down potential avenues of knowledge generation through the exclusion of wider, diverse and marginalised scholarly communities.
Consideration of inequalities
As a feminist organisation, we are conscious of not wanting to replicate gendered and intersectional inequalities, such as those pertaining to race, class, disability and the politics of location. While precarious academic positions are commonplace, research demonstrates that structurally marginalised scholars are particularly affected (UCU, 2020; UCU, 2021; HESA, 2022). This is particularly pertinent for a journal like Feminist Review, which is concerned with issues of social justice. We aim to support marginalised scholars, not just through the content of the journal but also in our larger working practices.
Practical concerns
The Feminist Review journal is independently owned by Feminist Review Limited, run by collective members. The journal is produced and distributed in partnership with our publisher, Sage Publications Inc. Practically speaking, the money for the honorariums comes out of Feminist Review’s annual income, which is a percentage of royalties from sales that are managed and distributed by Sage. The amount of the honorarium has been worked out based on the estimated number of hours it would take to read an article and provide a meaningful review, as well as the number of issues we publish per year and number of articles per issue we send out for peer review. There is no obligation for reviewers to claim the money, and the money from waived honorariums is maintained for payment to future peer reviewers of the journal.
One of the main arguments against paid peer review regards the sustainability of this payment model for journals (Brainard, 2021). However, in our view, sustainability cannot be synonymous with the exploitation of labour. At the same time, while we have the resources to support our peer reviewers in this small way, we recognise that other journals may not be in the same position.
Conclusion
Feminist Review’s newly offered honorariums are part of our wider strategy towards recognising the numerous ways in which ‘free’ and invisible labour underpins academic publishing and academia more widely. We want to acknowledge how crucial these forms of labour are for the survival of the journal and in maintaining its quality and reputation, and that of higher education at large. We continue to discuss how we value and compensate contributors. The honorarium payment system also aims to acknowledge the precarious position many of those working in higher educational institutions find themselves in presently. In coming to this decision, we have and continue to ask ourselves: As a feminist organisation, what practices would we like to foster and how might we use the resources we have as a journal to support academics, their research and expertise? Following a positive response to the honorariums, we hope this will provoke wider conversations among academic journals and publishers regarding peer review and best practices for acknowledging different forms of devalued labour.
FR vision statement, September 2022
In early 2022, we began working on our ‘new’ collective vision, that is, how we, together, imagine the space of FR. Through online vision boards, the online workspace Slack and collective writing and editing, we sought to discuss and hone FR’s vision, which includes the organisation’s purpose, aims and scope, and mission and articulating who FR is for. This is our new vision statement. 5
What is Feminist Review’s purpose?
Feminist Review’s purpose is to hold space for conversations that rethink and reimagine feminist scholarship and praxis: the modes and contexts in which it operates, the questions it takes up and with whom feminisms are in conversation.
Feminist Review aims to publish accessible knowledge and timely interventions that build on the work of Black, Indigenous, decolonial and transnational feminist struggle. We proceed with and advance an intersectional feminist understanding that inequalities within social categories and organising mechanisms of gender, race, class, sexuality, ableism, ethnicity, coloniality, capitalism and sanism, among others, are co-constitutive.
Feminist Review is committed to inspiring exchanges of ideas and explorations of praxis that address, disrupt and break through structural violence to make and nurture communities, connections and ways of sharing knowledge founded on mutual respect, kindness and care.
Who is Feminist Review for?
Feminist Review is for the creative and critical thinker and doer. It is for those committed to finding and sharing ways to challenge, resist and break free from discriminatory and oppressive practices and regimes, and to live other forms of existence. It is for those seeking community and to work together with others in solidarity with this aim.
What are Feminist Review’s values?
At Feminist Review, we are committed to building, living and extending a space of radical feminist practice that places care at its heart.
We are thinking with, and working through, the following questions:
How do we practise feminist care that extends beyond theorising, to act with care and responsibility to one another, in a manner that prioritises kindness, generosity, understanding?
How do we create space for alternative and marginalised voices and groups?
How can we develop non-exploitative practices in the production of intersectional feminist scholarship?
What are the ‘feminist futures’ we are seeking to collectively build, and what strategies, activisms, methodologies and epistemologies might guide us there?
n.b.
We have experienced some discomfort in drawing this piece to a close whilst we are still in a period of transition and the futurity of Feminist Review has yet to be fully realised.
Even so, we share with you, the reader, these thoughts and texts that touch on important ideas and questions that form the background for where we are now, as a gesture of openness and invitation to be part of this transition and reflection with us.