Confidentiality and Peer Review: The Paradox of Secrecy in Academe

Using narrative analysis, this essay critiques confidentiality in the peer review process, which is linked discursively with academic freedom, privacy, and honesty. Such a link disciplines individuals to believe that confidentiality is a personal interest and obscures the institutional and corporate interests at stake. Thus, confidentiality may insulate the academy from accountability and resistance. To exercise a critical agency that questions the interests that constrain them, faculty members may need to know and question how peer review decisions are made.