This blog was inspired by the recent article, Maintaining Standards or Gatekeeping the Academy? Reflections of Peer Review Experiences by Racially and Culturally Minoritized Scholars in Australia (Gatwiri, Krupka, & Abid, 2025).

By Olivia Roanhorse

October 2025

When I think about the peer review process, I can’t help but wonder: Does it have to be this way?

A recent conversation I had with Aleena Kawe (Yoeme) while co-creating the Restoring Balance Collaborative's1 theory of change, reminded me of that community review is already alive. In our work, knowledge is not a finished product awaiting judgment, but a living process. Advisory committees and gatherings continually review, critique, and evolve ideas. The people most impacted — community members themselves — are the reviewers.

That moment sparked something in me: if this is how knowledge is already built in community, why are academic2 systems still holding so tightly to a model that excludes us?

My Experiences With Peer Review

Throughout my academic journey, peer review often felt like a hindrance rather than support. More often, it felt like gatekeeping. Harsh reviews silenced creativity. What was called “rigor” seemed designed to dismiss Indigenous ways of knowing.

Our knowledge was often labeled “folklore” or “anecdotal.” Frameworks built on Eurocentric ideas of objectivity and universality left little room for the specificity of Indigenous experience. For me and for many Indigenous and marginalized scholars, it felt less like a process of strengthening work and more like a system of assimilation.

This became especially clear during my time in the DrPH program at Johns Hopkins. I entered with excitement to explore solutions to pressing issues in Indian Country. However, I soon found myself grappling with the limitations of Western academic systems. Equity and justice were “tracks,” not foundations. Community accountability was treated as an afterthought. I watched innovative community-led ideas relegated to “gray literature” reports, pilot projects, and local evaluations that brimmed with creativity but were never deemed rigorous enough for peer-reviewed journals.

That dissonance was painful. It taught me that peer review, as it is structured, isn’t neutral. It has always been political, deciding whose voices are amplified and whose are silenced.

1 Restoring Balance Collaborative is a global Indigenous-led initiative, rooted in ancestral knowledge and relational stewardship. It works to build community, foster leadership, and amplify Indigenous solutions for climate resilience and environmental justice, with the ambition of creating lasting, systemic change.

2 When I say “academia”, I mean the institutions of higher education, professional associations, and publishing systems that define what counts as valid knowledge and who is allowed to produce it. By contrast when I say “communities,” I mean the people, relationships and lived expertise from which knowledge emerges, elders, youth, cultural leaders, and practitioners whose expertise is not measured in degrees or publications, but in accountability and wisdom.

What If Peer Review Looked Different?

What if the people most impacted by research — elders, cultural leaders, youth, practitioners — were the ones reviewing it? What if their questions and priorities set the standards?

I imagine a process where:

Authors bring their work first to a community review circle, not a journal.
Feedback comes through dialogue, conversation, and relationship, not anonymous critique.
Work is judged by questions like: Does this honor our dignity? Is it useful? Does it support healing or sovereignty?
Communities decide whether it moves forward, with academic input as support, not control.
Publication occurs in ways that prioritize accessibility — whether through community-led platforms, multilingual journals, or gatherings.

“This reframing excites me because it shifts rigor from being a gatekeeping tool to a practice rooted in cultural relevance, accountability, and respect.”

Models That Inspire Me

We don’t have to imagine this from scratch. Indigenous communities are already modeling it.

The Navajo Nation Human Research Review Board, established in 1996, mandates that all research involving Navajo people be reviewed by the Nation before its initiation. It safeguards cultural integrity and ensures findings are returned to local communities. Canada’s First Nations Principles of OCAP® — Ownership, Control, Access, and Possession — affirm that communities govern their own data.

Tribal Epidemiology Centers (TECs) are another example. As tribally governed entities, they return data to communities through gatherings and advisory councils, allowing local voices to guide interpretation and even challenge findings. These practices embody Indigenous Data Sovereignty: the principle that data is not neutral, but carries relationships, responsibilities, and meaning.

Beyond Indigenous contexts, other movements also embody this spirit. Disability justice advocates insist on “nothing about us without us.” Immigrant justice organizations publish their own reports when mainstream research fails them. Across many contexts, communities are refusing to be mere subjects of study and are instead reclaiming their role as reviewers and validators of knowledge.

The Tensions

Of course, this isn’t easy. When community-led review meets academic publishing, tensions emerge. Community processes take time, while journals demand speed. Community knowledge may be dismissed as “too local.” Academic partners may want to publish findings that communities choose to withhold to protect their sovereignty. And journals rarely recognize community review as legitimate labor.

These tensions also reflect deeper clashes in how “valid knowledge” is defined. I’ve experienced this personally, and the criteria often used by journals highlight the mismatch:

Large Sample, Statistical Significance: In mainstream science, knowledge is considered valid only if it’s backed by large, randomized surveys producing statistically significant results. Indigenous communities, by contrast, privilege long-term, relational insights passed down through oral tradition, stories, and lived experience, truths that can’t be reduced to numbers.
Replication as Gold Standard: Western frameworks assume findings are only trustworthy if replicated across multiple contexts. Indigenous ways of knowing hold that place and context matter; what is true in one land or community may not apply elsewhere, and replication risks stripping knowledge of its meaning.
Detachment and Objectivity: Academic norms prize detachment, discouraging first-person narratives or relational accountability. Indigenous knowledge emphasizes positionality and storytelling, recognizing that the researcher is part of the knowledge system, not separate from it.
Universality Over Specificity: Academic publishing tends to reward theories that claim universality. Indigenous perspectives value the specificity of place, language, and culture, which are often dismissed as “parochial” or “not generalizable.”

These so-called standards of rigor reveal how peer review can unintentionally devalue Indigenous and community knowledge.

This is also why frameworks like the Equitable Evaluation Framework (EEF) are so important. EEF pushes us to ask: whose values define rigor, whose questions shape the research, and who holds power in interpreting the findings? It insists that equity and cultural context are not add-ons but central to determining what makes evaluation useful and just. This alignment strengthens the case for community-led peer review: both call us to expand the very definition of rigor beyond Eurocentric assumptions, toward practices that reflect relationships, accountability, and lived realities.

Why This Matters to Us

At Roanhorse Consulting, our research and evaluation are rooted in Indigenous worldviews: cyclic, relational, and holistic. Knowledge is held in community, not just in books or universities.

“For me, community-led peer review isn’t a radical idea. It’s the natural next step. It affirms sovereignty. It ensures that communities, not journals, shaped by Eurocentric standards, can say, This is good knowledge, this is worth sharing.”

It’s also about accountability. If we want research that heals, strengthens, and supports justice, then communities must be at the center of deciding what constitutes valid research.

A Call to Reimagine

I circle back to what Aleena Kawe reminded me: community review is already happening. Through advisory committees, gatherings, and the everyday work of relational accountability, knowledge is continually shaped and reshaped.

This is not a dream for the future; it’s a practice alive right now. Indigenous teachings, racial justice movements, disability justice, and immigrant rights — they all demonstrate that communities are asserting authority over knowledge.

“What if peer review everywhere reflected this balance? What if academic insight entered the circle not as a gatekeeper but as one voice among many?”

That’s the possibility I want to hold onto: a world where knowledge is co-created, accountable, and grounded in the authority of community.

Olivia’s Positionality Statement

I come from a place of deep connection, belonging, and responsibility. As a Diné woman from Window Rock, Arizona, on the Navajo Nation, I carry the history of my maternal clan, Near to Water (Tó’áhání), and my paternal clan, Bitter Water (Tódích’íí’nii). In our traditions, we recognize ourselves through our clans, greeting each other as relatives and honoring the relationships with the land, community, and stories that ground us. I currently live in unceded Tewa territory (Albuquerque, New Mexico) with my daughter and partner.

As a twin, I walk a path shaped by creation stories that teach me about courage, interdependence, and purpose. My sister and I were “blessed into our community,” and we carry the legacy of our ancestors who endured hardship to protect and nurture our people. I also know that my journey has not been without mistakes and missteps.

One of the most humbling experiences was my time in the DrPH program at Johns Hopkins. I entered that space with excitement to explore solutions to pressing issues in Indian Country, but quickly found myself wrestling with the limitations of Western academic systems. I realized how much these structures often silo equity and social justice as “tracks” rather than integrating them as foundational. I struggled with the limited space for community accountability or practical, place-based approaches, despite the rhetoric. Ultimately, I decided to withdraw. It was painful, and I felt both a sense of failure and a sense of freedom in stepping away. That choice taught me that walking in alignment with my values sometimes means leaving behind “prestigious” opportunities, even when the path forward is uncertain.

These experiences keep me grounded. They remind me that the work of research and evaluation is never neutral, and that my responsibility is not just to produce knowledge but to do so in ways that are accountable to the community. At Roanhorse Consulting, I continually learn how to practice reciprocity, humility, and transparency, knowing that each challenge, mistake, and moment of resistance presents an opportunity to realign with the teachings of my elders and the wisdom of our people.

I carry this humility forward. I aim to offer a different approach to research and evaluation: one grounded in relationships, informed by ancestral wisdom, and characterized by collective care rather than individual gain. This is how I strive to show up, as a Diné/Indigenous relative, a mother, a curious leader, and always a learner committed to walking this path with, not for, the communities I serve. And while I am grounded in my own Diné identity and community, I also hold deep respect and solidarity with Indigenous peoples globally, recognizing our interconnected struggles and shared resilience.

Reimagining Peer Review: What If Community Held the Power?