Masculinism, emplacement, and positionality in peer review

In this article I examine peer review (refereeing) of manuscripts for geography journals, focusing in particular upon the discourse of refereeing. I suggest that this discourse is constituted through seemingly banal practices and that it constructs and positions referees, the conceptual space of geography, and the knowledge produced by academics about specific places. Drawing upon feminist theory, I suggest that the dominant practice of "blind" (and "double-blind") refereeing relies upon a masculinist model of "objectivity" that is disembodied, impartial, and unlocated. This approach to peer review, I argue, genders geographic theory, reconstitutes abstract Cartesian space, and effaces place.