Prestige and Gatekeeping in Postgraduate Journals: The Case of Postgraduate English

Abstract

Relatively little has beensaid about the opportunities and challenges of digital, open access publishing asit pertains to postgraduate-led journals catering to postgraduate researchers.This paper draws on the authors’ experiences with Postgraduate English,one of the longest-running, born-digital journals for postgraduate researchersin English studies. It makes the case for the benefit of such publicationswithin the prestige economy and describes the ways in which quality can beassured, challenging those who might see postgraduate publications as furtherdiluting the pool of high-quality research. At the same time, the paper raisescritical questions about who really wins in postgraduate publishing. While thosewho publish and edit can benefit from the prestige indication of theseactivities, ultimately host institutions may gain more from the relationship viathe hidden labour costs behind such activity.