Abstract
This article contributes to dialog in the field about the nature of the manuscript review process. It develops a psychoanalytic framework for understanding how participants in the review process construct each other as subjects in discourse and why the experience of alienation inevitably marks this process. The framework suggests that participants can draw on different subject positions with regard to this alienation. One is imaginary and entails the failed fantasy that lack and alienation can be overcome. The other is symbolic and entails a mutual engagement with this failure. The article suggests imaginary positions are less constructive, resulting in struggles between participants as others. By contrast, it suggests symbolic positions are more constructive, resulting in struggles with otherness and opportunities for more creative outcomes. The article explores reviewer reflexivity as an important element of symbolic interactions in which participants have responsibility for the production of relationships in the review process.
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