Indigenous participation in peer review publications and the editorial process: reflections from a workshop

This communication paper reflects on discussions from a workshop about Indigenous involvement in the peer review and editorial processes. Arctic-based research is undergoing a paradigm shift to include local Indigenous Peoples, their priorities, and knowledge throughout the research process. This special issue is an excellent example; it highlights research involving partnerships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers to support knowledge co-production. Despite this shift, we find little space within the standard peer review and editorial processes for Indigenous Peoples, their perspectives, and knowledge. To discuss this issue, we organized a half-day workshop at the 2019 ArcticNet Annual Scientific Meeting with a diversity of Indigenous and non-Indigenous participants who are involved in Arctic research. The discussions revealedthat answering questions about the involvement of Indigenous Peoples in the peer review and editorial processes largely begins by addressing the challenges of achieving equity in the research process generally. Our discussions demonstrated that further conversations are needed and that no single approach will work in all cases, but that there are several concrete actions that researchers, universities, funding organizations, and publishers can take to begin addressing this issue.