Abstract
The object of the present article is to study the relations between the forms of knowledge production in archaeology and the existing systems of publication in academic journals. We explore the predominant criteria in peer-review processes and the relative importance of their epistemological dimension. The results are discussed in terms of the social, political and institutional implications of contemporary academic archaeology, suggesting a need to strengthen epistemological criteria in the peer-review processes, thus improving the justification of the assertions that archaeology makes about the past. This is important for archaeology as a discipline that claims to generate a contribution to present-day society, but it requires changes in institutional policies at local and regional levels in order to be effective.
Résumé
L’objet du présent article est une étude des relations entre les formes de production de connaissances dans l’archéologie et les systèmes existants de publication dans les revues spécialisées. Nous explorons les critères prédominants au sein des processus de revue par des pairs ainsi que l’importance relative de la dimension épistémologique. Les résultats font l’objet d’une discussion en termes d’implications sociales, politiques et institutionnelles pour l’archéologie universitaire contemporaine. Ils suggèrent la nécessité d’un renforcement des critères épistémologiques dans le cadre des processus de revue par des pairs, permettant ainsi d’améliorer la justification des assertions énoncées par l’archéologie sur le passé. Ceci est important pour l’archéologie en tant que discipline en ce qu’elle prétend apporter une contribution à la société actuelle, mais des modifications s’imposent quant aux politiques institutionnelles aux niveaux locaux et régionaux pour parvenir à l’efficacité.
Resumen
El objeto del presente artículo es estudiar las relaciones entre las formas de producción de conocimiento en arqueología y los sistemas existentes de publicación en revistas académicas. Exploramos los criterios predominantes en los procesos de revisión por pares y la importancia relativa de su dimensión epistemológica. Los resultados se discuten en términos de las implicaciones sociales, políticas e institucionales de la arqueología académica contemporánea, lo que sugiere la necesidad de fortalecer los criterios epistemológicos en los procesos de revisión por pares, mejorando así la justificación de las afirmaciones que la arqueología hace sobre el pasado. Esto es importante para la arqueología como disciplina que pretende generar una contribución a la sociedad actual, pero requiere cambios en las políticas institucionales a nivel local y regional para que sea efectiva.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Different criteria should apply to review articles and exclusively theoretical or methodological articles, such as this one!
References
Atalay, S., Clauss, L. R., MacGuire, R., & Welch, J. (2014). Transforming archaeology. Activist practices and prospects. Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press.
Bedeian, A. (2004). Peer review and the social construction of knowledge in the management discipline. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 3(2), 198–216.
Benos, D. J., Bashari, E., Chaves, J., Gaggar, A., Kapoor, N., LaFrance, M., et al. (2007). The ups and downs of peer review. Advances in Physiology Education, 31(2), 145–152.
Björk, B. C., & Catani, P. (2016). Peer review in megajournals compared with traditional scholarly journals: Does it make a difference? Learned Publishing, 29(1), 9–12.
Bohannon, J. (2013). Who’s afraid of peer review? Science, 342, 60–65. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.342.6154.60.
Bornmann, L. (2008). Scientific peer review: An analysis of the peer-review process from the perspective of sociology of science theories. Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-knowledge, 6(2), 24–38.
Bourdieu, P. (2003). Los Usos Sociales de la Ciencia. Buenos Aires: Ediciones Nueva Visión.
Campanario, J. M. (1998a). Peer review for journals as it stands today—Part I. Science Communication, 19(3), 181–211.
Campanario, J. M. (1998b). Peer review for journals as it stands today—Part 2. Science Communication, 19(4), 277–306.
Campanario, J. M. (2002). El sistema de revisión por expertos (peer review): muchos problemas y pocas soluciones. Revista Española de Documentación Científica, 25(3), 267–285.
Carver, M. (2007). Archaeology journals, academics and open access. European Journal of Archaeology, 10(2–3), 135–148.
Chapman, R., & Wylie, A. (2016). Evidential reasoning in archaeology. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Clapham, P. (2005). Publish or perish. BioScience, 55(5), 390–391.
Clarke, D. (1973). Archaeology: The loss of innocence. Antiquity, 47, 6–18.
Cornejo, L., & Sanhueza, L. (2003). Coexistencia de cazadores recolectores y horticultores tempranos en la cordillera andina de Chile Central. Latin American Antiquity, 14(4), 389–407.
Criado, F. (2018). Ciencia pública y patrimonio: Más allá de la ciencia normal y de la ciencia comunitaria. Revista PH, 95, 102–107.
Criado-Boado, F. (2001). Problems, functions and conditions of archaeological knowledge. Journal of Social Archaeology, 1(1), 126–146.
Fogelin, L. (2007). Inference to the best explanation: A common and effective form of archaeological reasoning. American Antiquity, 72, 603–625.
Fuenzalida, N. (2017). Apuntes para una arqueología de la dictadura chilena. Revista Chilena de Antropología, 35, 131–147.
Gándara, M. (2008). El análisis teórico en ciencias sociales: aplicación a una teoría del origen del estado en Mesoamérica. Ph.D. Thesis, ENAH, México D.F.
Gibbon, G. (1989). Explanation in archaeology. Blackwell, Malden.
González Ruibal, A. (2012). Hacia otra arqueología: diez propuestas. Complutum, 23(2), 103–116.
González-Ruibal, A., Alonso, P., & Criado-Boado, F. (2018). Against reactionary populism: Towards a new public archaeology. Antiquity, 92(362), 505–517.
Gurruchaga, A., & Salgado, M. (2017). Publicación científica bajo criterios hegemónicos: explorando la realidad arqueológica chilena. Revista Chilena de Antropología, 35, 148–163.
Hartley, J. (2008). Academic writing and publishing: A practical handbook. London: Routledge.
Horwitz, V. (2008). ¿Cantidad o calidad? Cuánto y dónde publicar. Intersecciones en Antropología, 9, 229–239.
Huisman, J., & Smits, J. (2017). Duration and quality of the peer review process: The author’s perspective. Scientometrics, 113(1), 633–650.
Jukola, S. (2017). A social epistemological inquiry into biases in journal peer review. Perspectives on Science, 25(1), 124–148.
Kosso, P. (2001). Knowing the past: Philosophical issues of history and archaeology. New York: Humanity Books.
Kulkarni, S. (2016). What causes peer review scams and how can they be prevented? Learned Publishing, 29(3), 211–213.
Lanata, J. L., Aldenderfer, M., & Jochim, M. (2007). The peer-review process for American Antiquity and Latin American Antiquity. SAA Archaeological Record, 7(1), 12–15.
Larivière, V., Haustein, S., & Mongeon, P. (2015). The oligopoly of academic publishers in the digital era. PLoS ONE, 10(6), 1–15.
Lee, C., Sugimoto, C., Zhang, G., & Cronin, B. (2013). Bias in peer review. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 64, 2–17.
Longino, H. (2002). The fate of knowledge. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Mahoney, M. J. (1977). Publication prejudices: An experimental study of confirmatory bias in the peer review system. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 1(2), 161–175.
McGuire, R. (2008). Archaeology as political action. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Moed, H. (2016). Towards new indicators of a journal’s manuscript peer review process. Frontiers in Research Metrics and Analytics, 1(5), 1–4.
Nagaoka, L. (2006). Assessing publication impact through citation data. The SAA Archaeological Record, 6, 32–37.
Prieto, M., Salazar, D., & Valenzuela, M. J. (2019). The dispossession of the San Pedro de Inacaliri River: Political ecology, extractivism and archaeology. The Extractive Industries and Society, 6, 562–572.
Ruiz-Zapatero, G. (2016). Publicar en revistas de arqueología: cartografía académica y retos de futuro. Revista d’arqueologia de Ponent, 26, 265–279.
Salazar, D., Alvar, R., González, R., Hernández, D., Ramírez, H., Vega, F., et al. (2017). Ciencia y política en la arqueología chilena: el caso de Fondecyt. Revista Chilena de Antropología, 35, 186–217.
Salazar, D., Jackson, D., & Troncoso, A. (2012). Entre dos tierras: reflexiones sobre la arqueología chilena en el siglo veintiuno. In P. Ayala & F. Vilches (Eds.), Teoría Arqueológica en Chile: reflexionando en torno a nuestro quehacer disciplinario (pp. 41–71). San Pedro de Atacama: Qillqa.
Smith, M. (2015). How can archaeologists make better arguments? The SAA Archaeological Record, 15(4), 18–23.
Vargas, I., & Sanoja, M. (1990). Educación y el manejo político de la historia en Venezuela. Boletín de Antropología Americana, 21, 89–101.
Vasen, F. (2016). ¿Estamos ante un “giro poscompetitivo” en la política de ciencia, tecnología e innovación? Sociologicas Año, 18(41), 242–268.
Vessuri, H., Guédon, J. C., & Cetto, A. M. (2014). Excellence or quality? Impact of the current competition regime on science and scientific publishing in Latin America and its implications for development. Current Sociology, 62(5), 647–665.
Vora, N., & Boellstorff, T. (2012). Anatomy of an article: The peer-review process as method. American Anthropologist, 114(4), 578–583.
Wylie, A. (1992). The interplay of evidential constraints and political interests: recent archaeological research on gender. American Antiquity, 59, 15–35.
Wylie, A. (2002). Thinking from things: Essays in the philosophy of archaeology. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Wylie, A. (2011). Critical distance: Stabilizing evidential claims in archaeology. In P. Dawid, W. Twining, & M. Vasilaki (Eds.), Evidence, inference and enquiry (pp. 371–394). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wylie, A. (2015). A plurality of pluralisms: Collaborative practice in archaeology. In F. Padovani, A. Richardson, & J. Tsou (Eds.), Objectivity in science (pp. 189–210). New York: Springer.
Young, S. N. (2003). Peer review of manuscripts: Theory and practice. Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, 28(5), 327.
Acknowledgements
This paper was conceived and developed during discussions held during successive years of the course “Problemas en Arqueología” of the Magister en Arqueología program of the Universidad de Chile. Previous versions were presented at the I Jornadas de Investigación de la Facultad de Ciencias Sociales and the XII Jornadas Latinoamericanas de Estudios Sociales sobre Ciencia y Tecnología, both held in Santiago (Chile) in 2018. We are grateful for critical comments received in both instances which helped improve our work. We are especially grateful for all those colleagues who generously helped in compiling the database for the archaeology journals included in this study: Manuel Arroyo-Kalin, María Florencia Becerra, José Berenguer, Luis Alberto Borrero, Isabel Cartajena, Patricio De Souza, Tom Dillehay, Carola Flores, Alfredo González-Ruibal, Colin McEwan, César Méndez, Jerry Moore, César Parcero-Oubiña, Daniel Sandweiss, Calogero Santoro, Ximena Villagrán and Débora Zurro. We would also like to thank the journal editors who generously replied our online questionnaire. Despite all the help received, all mistakes and opinions remain our own responsibility.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Salazar, D., Ramírez, H., Yrarrazaval, S. et al. Peer-Review and Academic Archaeology: Quality, Epistemology and Science Policies. Arch 15, 227–253 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11759-019-09367-6
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11759-019-09367-6