RHM's commitment to anti-racist and inclusive reviewing practices

 

The editorial team at RHM is thankful for “Anti-Racist Scholarly Reviewing Practices” and those who created it, particularly its call for more transparency and accountability as well as more protections for multiply marginalized or underrepresented scholars. We are also grateful to the Library Publishing Coalition and its recently released “Roadmap for Anti-Racist Practice.” We welcome the invitation to draw on both documents to reaffirm, clarify, rethink, and add to our intentionally inclusive reviewing and larger manuscript development processes.

In particular, we ask reviewers for RHM to consider, in part:

• providing generative suggestions and mentoring to authors on how to frame articles within the context of relevant conversations taking place in the field.
• identifying when manuscripts are purposefully pushing the boundaries of the field and encouraging authors to make a strong(er) case for doing so.
• how authors may draw upon methods and lived experiences that can act as equally-rigorous approaches for conducting research beyond expected and dominant forms of data collection.
• that citation practices are political and that authors may intentionally omit citing certain authors because of previous oppressive and harmful actions.
• recommending work by MMU scholars that may be helpful for authors’ arguments.
• noting when authors should follow APA style guidelines on using inclusive language.

 

RHM’s (potential) authors, reviewers, and others will see this work reflected in the journal’s editorial board and team, policies, processes, and mechanisms, both formal and informal; we will also continue to address issues of diversity, inclusion, access, and equity in our issue introductions. We are grateful for the reminder to regularly and collaboratively review the journal’s reviewing and other journal practices, and we are committed to this, too, being an inclusive practice. Finally, we are thankful for the opportunity to contribute to these important efforts.