Qualifications for reviewers, types of review, and decolonised review

Qualifications for reviewers

Not everyone with an interest in a topic is qualified to review it. Editors look for at least one of the following when identifying a suitable reviewer for a manuscript, and it helps to understand these yourself so you know when to accept an invitation and when to decline it.

• Published in the journal: strong evidence of fit, since it shows you understand the journal’s expectations from the author’s side
• Extensive knowledge or expertise of the area or topic: deep, established knowledge of the specific subject matter the manuscript addresses
• Expertise in the methods used: strong knowledge of a particular research method, qualifying you to assess whether it was applied soundly regardless of the topic
• Knowledge of the geography or population studied: familiarity with the specific place or community a study is set in, allowing you to judge whether claims about context and culture ring true

An editor typically looks for at least one of these four to be clearly present before inviting someone to review. If you are invited to review a manuscript and genuinely have none of these, the honest response, consistent with the peer reviewer code, is to say so rather than accept anyway.

Types of review

Reviewers should understand which type of review they are being asked to do, since expectations differ.

• Single blind review: the reviewer knows the author’s identity, but the author does not know the reviewer’s
• Double blind review: neither party knows the other’s identity, the default approach at AJSW and Mtandao’s other journals
• Open review: both identities are known, sometimes with the review itself published alongside the article
• Post publication review: feedback and critique offered after a work is already published, common for books

Decolonised review

A decolonised review does not measure a manuscript only against Western academic convention. It asks whether African theory, vernacular language, orature and lived experience have been given the same standing as any other form of evidence, whether the manuscript’s framing serves African readers and communities rather than translating African material for an external audience, and whether the reviewer’s own standard for what counts as rigorous has room for ways of knowing that were not part of their own formal training. This approach runs through the whole of this course, and is covered in depth in Section 5.