Abstract:
The double-blind peer-review of manuscripts for potential publication
is a longstanding tradition in the production of scholarship. Nursing has
adopted this tradition to secure a place of legitimacy and authority for
its scholarship amongst the other disciplines in the academy. However,
despite its ubiquity and avowed utility, the peer-review has not generally
been the subject of much research let alone intense philosophical scrutiny
and debate. This manuscript attempts such an engagement with a
view to uncovering specific concerns about the essentially conservative
and sometimes restrictive effects the double-blind peer-review produces.
Drawing on the deconstructionist writings of Derrida and his
acolytes this paper attempts to dig beneath the surface mechanics of the
double-blind peer-review and in so doing, expose its rather shaky philosophical
foundations. It is written to open debate from others who too,
have harboured doubts about its adequacy and supremacy as a technology
in the production of (legitimate) knowledge.
