AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST

Anatomy of an Article: The Peer-Review Process as Method

Neha Vora and Tom Boellstorff

ABSTRACT In this article, we provide an unprecedented insider view of the peer-review process. Specifically,
we highlight how an author (Vora) revised a manuscript submitted to American Anthropologist in a manner that
resulted in its eventual publication in the journal. This included responding in various revisions of the manuscript
to comments from the editor (Boellstorff), as well as a reviewer who has agreed to reveal her identity (Karen Ho).
By showing examples of this revision process, we explore the “anatomy of an article,” illustrating how a deeper
understanding of the peer-review process can contribute to anthropological professionalization and successful
publishing. [methodology, publishing, editing, anthropological writing, peer review]

INTRODUCTION initial submission), R1 (the first revised resubmission), R2

D espite the fact that most anthropologists publish in

peer-reviewed journals where revision and resubmis-
sion is the norm, and despite the fact that in many academic
(the second revised resubmission), and R3 (the final version
that went into production).
This jointly authored piece appears in this “In Focus” sec-
and nonacademic contexts such publishing is the cornerstone tion because the idea for writing it materialized at the Amer-
of influence and assessment, the actual work of revision of- ican Anthropology conference. At that event, we informally
ten remains shrouded in mystery. To some degree this is an presented some of the editor’s letters and author responses
artifact of the editorial process, given that we generally pro- in regard to Vora’s article; the strong response, particularly
tect the confidentiality of authors and reviewers. However, from graduate students, led us to conclude that a more ex-
our experiences as editor-in-chief and editorial assistant for tended discussion would be useful. To demystify the process
American Anthropologist have impressed on us the extent to of scholarly revision, for this article Vora has agreed to make
which even seasoned scholars do not always understand the details of her earlier drafts public. With Vora’s permission,
basic back-and-forth dynamics of revision and resubmission. Boellstorff has agreed to make—for the first time during his
These impressions were strengthened through ongoing con- editorship—excerpts of his editor’s letters public as well.
versations with colleagues, graduate students, and mentors Finally, we are grateful that one of the anonymous reviewers
about academic professionalization and the need for greater who looked at the first and second versions of the manuscript
transparency. has consented to make excerpts of her reviews public.
In light of this state of affairs, in this article we take We thank this reviewer, Karen Ho, for her willingness to
advantage of an extraordinary set of opportunities to show thereby allow us to present all sides of the “conversation” be-
how the publication process works—in effect, to reveal the tween author, editor, and reviewer that are central to peer
anatomy of an article. One of us (Vora) was the first editorial review.
assistant of AA under the other’s (Boellstorff’s) editorship. In what follows, we thus interweave elements of four
A little over a year after leaving to take up a tenure-track different texts to chart out the process by which a manuscript
faculty position, Vora submitted a manuscript to AA. The became a published article through peer review. These texts
manuscript received a decision of “revise and resubmit,” was are (1) the manuscript itself, in its various incarnations as it
resubmitted, received a second decision of “revise and resub- was revised; (2) reviewer comments; (3) editor’s letters; and
mit,” and was resubmitted again before being conditionally (4) the cover letters through which the author summarized
accepted for publication; following yet another final set of how she responded to reviewer and editor comments. In
revisions, the article appeared in AA (Vora 2011). We will three cases we provide “road maps” to this process with
thus be discussing four versions of the manuscript in this arti- excerpts from these texts. Given limits of space, we have
cle, which following in-house nomenclature we label R0 (the selected aspects of Vora’s manuscript that both succinctly

AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Vol. 114, No. 4, pp. 578–583, ISSN 0002-7294, online ISSN 1548-1433. 
c 2012 by the American Anthropological
Association. All rights reserved. DOI: 10.1111/j.1548-1433.2012.01490.x
 Vora and Boellstorff • Anatomy of an Article 579

demonstrate the dynamics of submission and revision and are that research. However, it is usually novel to readers, even
also relatively common issues in other submissions to AA. those who work on the topic in question. Indeed, the point
As scholars, we have often heard the mantra “publish of any scholarly journal is to present new research findings
or perish.” The sense of urgency this conveys is something and conceptual insights; for a flagship journal like AA, this
that many of us begin to feel in graduate school and carry is compounded by the fact that the goal is to present such
into the job market, through tenure, and beyond. But how findings and insights from a broad range of subdisciplinary
to publish, the everyday work of journal editing, and the and interdisciplinary projects. As a result, a crucial issue
messy product that precedes the final print version are often authors often struggle to address is presenting their argument
obscure; they are typically addressed in graduate methods in a manner that makes the trajectory of the analysis clear to
courses in passing, if at all. While the article we “dissect” a wide readership. There are many ways to tell a story and
here had its own unique trajectory at AA, it also was in many many conceivable ways to structure a manuscript. The point
ways ordinary when compared to other submissions that is not to force one’s writing into a rigid mold but, rather, to
crossed Boellstorff’s desk. We thus chose to present areas find a convincing way to order and explain the steps of one’s
of revision that will resonate with the broadest possible argument.
readership. Our hope is that mapping out the process of In the case of what would become Vora’s article, re-
scholarly publication will be useful to a wide range of authors, viewers found that the initial version of the manuscript (R0)
reviewers, editors, and scholars, including but not limited did not map out the argument with sufficient clarity. This
to fellow anthropologists. was particularly the case with regard to the introduction,
which ideally should both lay out the argument to be pre-
sented and explain its trajectory. While many authors think
MAPPING THE ARGUMENT that waiting until the conclusion to provide a “punchline”
One thing Boellstorff has learned from his editorial expe- provides the best impact, this does not make for a well-
rience is that, while every manuscript has unique needs in constructed article that engages a reader from beginning
terms of revision, authors do frequently make certain errors to end. There can be twists and turns, surprises, and un-
(Boellstorff 2008, 2010). To make our discussion maximally expected insights, but readers often determine whether an
relevant, we focus on three such common issues for revi- article is worth their time based on the goals presented in
sion, issues for which the back-and-forth between Vora, the abstract and introduction. Like many articles that appear
Boellstorff, and Ho resulted in successful improvement. in AA, Vora’s manuscript presented a multilayered and com-
The first of these issues can be called “mapping the plicated narrative with several interconnected arguments.
argument.” Regardless of the issues addressed or methods The introduction to R0 did not adequately tease out these
used, at its core any article is a narrative: it tells a story. complex issues, and both Boellstorff and Ho found that
That story is deeply familiar to the author, who has typically this weakness needed to be addressed in the revisions (see
spent years conducting research and writing up the results of Figure 1).

The final paragraph of the introduction to R0:

In her review of R0, Ho noted that:
This article considers how the forms of cosmopolitanism and
While it is clear that the author is making a multi-layered
neoliberal economic belonging available to wealthy non-citizens
argument, exactly what the central, intersecting arguments
during Dubai’s “boom” period in the early millennium both diverged are, why they are important arguments to be making in the
from and overlapped with the cosmopolitanism that Indian merchant contemporary moment in light of the literature on diaspora
narratives expressed. The Dubai government’s moves to shift the and migration, and how these layers articulate and fit
focus of Dubai’s economy away from mercantile trade networks and together need to be highlighted and fleshed out.
into large scale multi-national development projects were threatening Otherwise, the full force of the author’s contributions is
the forms of belonging that Indian merchants had carved out in the unfulfilled, as the main points are not tied together.
emirate during and after British colonialism in the region, and before
the liberalization of India’s economy, even as Indian merchants were
to some extent part of these changes and participants in the production
of Dubai as a “global city.” Though these business owners and their Boellstorff also emphasized in his first Editor’s Letter
families, some of who were into their third or even fourth generation that this section was a priority for revision:
in the Gulf, remain classified as temporary economic migrants—by
Mapping out your argument more carefully might help
the Indian state, by the Dubai government, and in their own self-
address the kinds of concerns expressed above by the
descriptions—I argue that their forms of belonging are important for reviewers. For instance, note the final sentence of your
understanding the on-the-ground shifts in forms of cosmopolitanism introduction... This is packing a lot into a single sentence!
in Dubai, and in expanding our anthropological approaches to I would suggest pausing over this line of analysis and
diasporic citizenship to include non-Western and non-liberal contexts expanding your discussion. You’re setting out the key
like the United Arab Emirates. concepts and claims of the manuscript here, but it’s
not clear, for instance, what you mean by “on-the
ground shifts in forms of cosmopolitanism.”

FIGURE 1.
580 American Anthropologist • Vol. 114, No. 4 • December 2012

In revising the manuscript, Vora focused on outlining the market that allows certain foreigners to succeed if they perform
argument more clearly at the outset, so as to provide readers neoliberal self-enterprising subjectivities. . . . Within this frame-
work, citizenship does not necessarily equal rights, and some ex-
a better sense of how that argument would be articulated patriates enjoy certain forms of moveable entitlement, effectively
through the ethnographic data. This process took two more belonging more than formal citizens.1
revisions and resulted in a more organized argument. In the
R0 version of the manuscript, the paragraph in Figure 1 This expansion of the introduction allowed Vora to more
marked the end of the introduction. However, in the cover effectively set out the goals of the analysis. Indeed, by the
letter accompanying the R2 resubmission, Vora noted that: time the manuscript had been accepted for publication, the
I have taken your advice and unpacked my introduction, as well introduction had been revised more substantially than any
as moved some of the framing concepts peppered throughout other part of the text. This reflected the fact that multiple
the text up into the introductory paragraphs. In addition, I have reviewers emphasized the need to craft an opening that
included clearer signposting throughout, as well as attempted to explained to readers where the argument was going. That
define for the reader my terms and concepts, both as I use them,
and as my informants referenced them in their narratives.
different manuscripts have different needs for improvement
can be seen in the fact that reviewers were not strongly
In other words, Vora brought material that had been concerned with Vora’s presentation of ethnographic data
relegated to later portions of the manuscript into the new (another common area where improvement is needed in
introduction. By significantly expanding the introduction in AA submissions) but, rather, with the overall argument.
this way, she was able to tease apart the various threads of The two other areas of concern for Vora’s piece that we
the argument at the outset and connect them with relevant highlight below were addressed to some degree in revisions
literatures and debates. As a result, in the final (R3) version to the introduction but came up with regard to other parts
of the introduction, the paragraph shown in Figure 1 was of the manuscript as well.
revised and also followed by this “mapping of the argument”:
In this article, I argue that Indian merchants were negotiating and UNPACKING KEY TERMS
narrating forms of substantive citizenship in Dubai that resem- While as scholars we often write for interdisciplinary and
bled forms of belonging that scholars have noted within South popular audiences, we also always engage in more focused
Asian diasporas located in Western liberal democratic contexts. I
explore both how this was happening despite the lack of formal conversations that rely on shared vocabularies. The more
modes of citizenship and permanent belonging available to Indi- we use such shared vocabularies, the further we get from
ans in contemporary Dubai and in response to changes in Dubai’s being able to translate their key terms to wider audiences.
migration, economic, and political policies that reduced their priv- For a journal with a broad readership like AA, the goal is
ileged status in the country. . . scholars have noted that citizenship
in these states is based not on liberal forms of public participation usually to make one’s work as accessible as possible without
but rather on generous welfare benefits (Longva 2000; Dresch compromising conceptual sophistication. Reviewers for the
and Piscatori 2005). The increasing number of foreigners in the journal express understandable concern when authors as-
rapidly-developing Gulf states combined with high levels of wealth sume readers will share definitions of key terms. The rec-
due to oil and other resources means that the category of “citizen”
holds a great deal of importance (Kapiszewski 2001). However,
ommendation is usually to carefully unpack such terms, so
while some scholars and non-governmental organizations tend to that the points the author is trying to convey through them
stress the lack of “rights” afforded to Gulf citizens, others argue are evident to the reader.
that the “patrimonial state” utilizes both illiberal and liberal logics This concern with unpacking key terms arose in the
of governance in the production of citizen-subjects. . . . Several context of Vora’s manuscript. One example of this involved
scholars of non-liberal states and of the Gulf context, however,
have noted that these supposedly “rightsless” migrants are also the term freedom, which Vora wanted to explore as an ethno-
governed through technologies and rhetorics of a free and open of graphically situated and shifting term (see Figure 2).

From page 4 of R0: In her review of R0, Ho noted that:

There are therefore two competing but overlapping forms of The author should more clearly explain the multiple, intersecting
economic freedom and cosmopolitanism circulating among meanings and uses of “freedom” and its relationship with citizenship
Indian merchants in Dubai—the neoliberal “global city” and belonging. As it stands, the argument is still unclear...on page 4,
models espoused by the state and made visible through the author argues that the two key forms of “economic freedom”
economic projects of mega-development do not encompass the among Indian businessmen are 1). the “‘global city’ model” which
same types of “freedoms” that Indian merchants reference in is not 2). the model “deployed against India’s economic restrictions
their criticisms of India’s economic restrictions and liberal- and liberal forms of citizenship…or in the nostalgia…” In both
democratic forms of citizenship (where people can shout and
instances, it’s unclear what the author means to say about the
yell, for example) or in the nostalgia for the Dubai Creek as a
informants’ and the state’s understandings: what is the global city
golden frontier built on male camaraderie and smuggling.
model and the model that is not deployed? Also, is “freedom” really
economic deregulation, or simply regulations that preserve monopolies?

FIGURE 2.
 Vora and Boellstorff • Anatomy of an Article 581

In response to these concerns, Vora revised this part of page 4 with the goal of delineating the two types of
“freedom” more clearly (see Figure 3):

From page 4 of R1:

There were therefore two competing but overlapping forms of

economic freedom and cosmopolitanism circulating among In her review of R1, Ho noted that:
Indian merchants in Dubai: first, the neoliberal “global-city”
model espoused by the state and made visible through While the author did a good job delineating the multiple meanings and
economic projects of megadevelopment and, second, the uses of “freedom,” a few questions remain with the author’s making
nostalgia for the Dubai Creek as a golden frontier built on male of distinctions between “older” and “newer” neoliberal practices.
camaraderie and smuggling. In this section, I explore these It is unclear to me, for example, how and why the informants
competing and overlapping forms of “freedom” in relation to complain about India’s new “liberalization” when the author points to
the historical relationship between India and Dubai, the how these developments have allowed the reinforcement of
changes in Dubai’s economy implemented by Sheikh accumulation among these elites?… Can the author more clearly state
Mohammed in the last decade, and the role of Indian and other why the informants feel a “declined” sense of belonging as a way to
merchants in producing Dubai as a regional hub for “re-export” problematize the rubrics of neoliberalism?
before the adoption of the newer economic models through
which Dubai’s boom (and subsequent “bust”) are understood
today.

FIGURE 3.

As you can see in Figure 2, Ho was convinced by one By neoliberal, I mean government deregulation of the economy
revised area but brought up further issues for Vora to address as well as an increase in market-driven models and discourses in
in the next revision. Vora responded to Ho’s concerns in R2 practices of governance and self-governance. See, for example,
Comaroff and Comaroff 2000, Harvey 2005, and Rose 1989.
by emphasizing how her informants understood “freedom”:
However, reviewer comments do sometimes provide
Although Indian merchants increasingly defined freedom and be-
longing through neoliberal discourses of relaxed regulation and en- contradictory suggestions or make tangential requests that
trepreneurial opportunities, they were threatened and challenged do not fit the scope of the author’s vision. While Vora agreed
by the newer neoliberal market forms that were circulating in with the main concerns of the reviewers, in her final cover
Dubai. Their understandings of belonging and practices of citizen- letter she also noted some areas where she chose not to
ship were therefore based on their narratives of maneuvering the
system as a form of “freedom” and privileged belonging to Dubai.
revise the manuscript:
I have tried to respond to the specific reviewer comments that are
She further addressed these concerns about understandings not covered in your letter. However, there are some places I have
of freedom and belonging by noting that decided not to make changes . . . I have not expanded on why
Emirati national identity is so important to preserve/produce.
by disarticulating political and cultural belonging to the UAE, but
I feel my explanation of demographic imbalance and the need
participating in practices of governance and political engagement
for citizen “purity” in the face of foreigners encompasses this
with the state, Indian businessmen act in some ways as citizens,
point.
extracting rents from other migrants, influencing decisions that
maintain their primacy in the market, and exercising governance These examples highlight several ways in which Vora
over laboring classes. . . . They therefore reified an Arab and
Muslim nation-state to which they cannot officially ever belong. worked to unpack key terms in response to editor and re-
However, their claims to belonging through historical narratives viewer comments while also making editorial decisions that
of masculine mercantile sociality also challenged and exceeded the kept the manuscript from straying in too many directions.
neat temporal, cultural, and legal distinctions between citizen and Because as scholars we use such terms as our very tools of
foreigner in the UAE, thus recuperating the South Asian presence
within Emirati national identity and imaginations of its heritage
thought, it can be difficult to realize how others might see
and history. them as “jargon” without careful explanation. Such clarifi-
cations need not take up an undue amount of space, as can
Another example of how unpacking key terms improves a be seen from the examples above. However, they do work
manuscript can be illustrated in Boellstorff’s final editor’s to make a manuscript far more accessible to an interdisci-
letter, where he suggested that it was still the case that plinary audience and often help on a conceptual level as well
too much of the manuscript comes off as “name-dropping” con- because the work of explaining key terms often leads an
cepts like “neoliberalism”—you need to slow down conceptually author to realize ways in which the terms are being used in
and (1) explain clearly what you mean when you use these terms; an imprecise or confusing manner.
(2) cite more carefully (and a broader range of authors) to back
up your understanding of these terms; and (3) link them up to DRAWING LARGER CONNECTIONS
your ethnographic/historical data as strongly as you can.
One hallmark of a successful research article is that the au-
One way that Vora responded to this suggestion for the final thor tells a sufficiently detailed story to make the claims
version of the manuscript was through the use of endnotes. convincing yet also contributes to broader scholarly conver-
For instance, Vora used endnote #6 of R3 to respond to sations. In other words, there should be effective engage-
Boellstorff’s suggestion regarding the term neoliberalism: ment both with the data (ethnographic or otherwise, as in
582 American Anthropologist • Vol. 114, No. 4 • December 2012

an archaeological analysis) and with the relevant literatures In addition, the unpacking of key terms helped Vora show
and debates. This balancing act of “researching narrowly but her readers how she was making contributions that extended
thinking broadly” is a challenge with which authors often beyond her specific field case. But Boellstorff and the review-
struggle through the revision process. In particular, the ar- ers raised other issues in regard to drawing larger connec-
ticle genre provides limited space to accomplish these goals, tions to the relevant literatures—particularly with regard to
yet all successful authors find a way to do so. the linked notions of “diaspora” and “cosmopolitanism” (see
As we demonstrated above, with regard to Vora’s Figure 4).
manuscript a key place where this kind of connection draw-
ing needed to take place was in the introduction.

From page 3 of R1:

Though these business owners and their

families… remain classified as temporary
economic migrants… I argue that their forms of In her review of R1, Ho noted that:
belonging are important for understanding the on- In his Editor’s Letter for R1,
the-ground shifts in forms of cosmopolitanism in …the author tentatively suggests Boellstorff drew from Ho’s comments
Dubai, and in expanding our anthropological expanding anthropological approaches and those of another review to
approaches to diasporic citizenship to include non- to diasporic citizenship—can the conclude that:
Western and non-liberal contexts like the United author be more concrete and give
Arab Emirates. more examples about how and why …a significant shortcoming of the
this article does exactly this, as this manuscript remains in regard to
is certainly a crucial contribution... making the structure of the
argument clear through a robust
engagement with the relevant
literatures.

On the pages 11–12 of R2, Vora did engage far more relevant literatures in regard to
these key terms (none of the cited authors appeared in R1): In her cover letter for R2, Vora explained
how she responded to these suggestions:
While their legal status renders them officially transitory, several scholars have noted
that… both “foreigners” and “citizens” contain within them forms of hybridity that [These reviewers were] unconvinced with
make these categories actually much more porous than Gulf states would have them be my use of cosmopolitanism in the framing
(Onley 2007; Dresch 2005; Kanna 2010). As I explore in greater detail below, my of my argument. In order to address this
informants’… constant insertions of Indian masculine achievements in the making of I have included literature that places Indian
modern Dubai mirrored the scholarly literature on Indian Ocean cosmopolitanism that merchants in Dubai within the historical
destabilizes the idea that it is a Western, modern, or “new” product that has only context of Indian Ocean cosmopolitanism.
recently arrived in the Gulf region... I point to how… my informants’ discourses…
in fact challenge… the ways in which
Vora also added an endnote to R2 showing these larger connections to the literature
(none of the cited authors appeared in R1): much of the literature on development,
globalization, and “global city” forms of
There is a significant body of Indian Ocean literature for example that tracks pre-oil, neoliberalization in the Gulf have treated
pre-national, and pre-colonial cosmopolitanisms. See for example Allen 1981; Al- the arrival of migrant populations and the
Rasheed 2005... Das Gupta 2004; Ghosh 1993... Onley 2007. This scholarship is in internationalization of these spaces as
direct contrast to models of cosmopolitanism that imply its origins in Western relatively new. Additionally, I have also
enlightenment theories of the individual, and the idea that it is privileged mobile or expanded my engagement with the
nomadic figures who can attain cosmopolitanism… Examples of this type of definition literature on Indian diasporas in other parts
of cosmopolitanism include Hannerz 1996 and Robbins 1998. For a fine critique of of the world...
these texts see Breckenridge et al. 2002.

FIGURE 4.

In the conclusion to the R3 version of the manuscript, Vora drew further connections to literatures on Indian diasporas:
Indians in Dubai are important to understanding citizenship be- of the population, is surprisingly absent from anthropological
cause, as diasporic subjects they impact the form of citizen- literature on migration, transnationalism and diasporas. I argue
ship in both countries. . . . For some Indians, then, citizen- that Indians in Dubai are indeed a diaspora population, in that
ship is more flexible than for others. . . . Citizenship is there- they articulate forms of belonging both to the Gulf and to In-
fore, as Ong argues, an “effect of flexible strategies of gov- dia, and because the dynamics of gender, class, ethnicity, gen-
erning” (1999:259), both by more powerful Indians and by eration, and religion within the Indian communities of Dubai
Emirati institutions . . . the United Arab Emirates, as home are specific to the context of the emirate and the greater Gulf
to over 1.5 million South Asians, who constitute the majority region.
 Vora and Boellstorff • Anatomy of an Article 583

These examples illustrate how successful revision in- so doing, we hope to inspire readers to work to get their
volves more than simply editing a sentence or even a para- research published, particularly graduate students and junior
graph. In many cases, what is needed is a systematic revision scholars who might otherwise hesitate submitting to a journal
carried throughout the manuscript in its entirety. For in- like AA. During the five years of his editorship, Boellstorff
stance, in the case at hand Vora responded to the need for has been committed to making the journal a true flagship
drawing broader connections in the introduction, through- for the field, one in which scholars learn about each other’s
out the body of the text (incl. endnotes), and reiterated work but also about aspects of the profession that are not
and further developed these connections in the conclusion. always discussed in these kinds of fora. This article, along
While an editorial decision of “revise and resubmit” or “re- with the other two presented here, are part of what we hope
ject” can feel like a blow to our research, we have tried to will be AA’s continuing legacy of leadership and creativity in
show here how it is possible to successfully integrate re- anthropology.
viewer comments (both positive and critical) to improve a
manuscript, whether for resubmission to the same journal or
for a new venue. It is this level of systemic revision that can
take manuscripts to a whole new level and greatly increase Neha Vora Department of Anthropology & Sociology, Marquis 35,
the chance that they will be accepted for publication. Lafayette College, Easton, PA 18042; voran@lafayette.edu
Tom Boellstorff Department of Anthropology, University of
CONCLUSION California, Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697–5100; tboellst@uci.edu
When Boellstorff and Vora started work on AA in 2007, it was
a learning curve for both of them. Having never edited a jour-
nal before, Boellstorff inherited a flagship journal that was in NOTE
need of reinvigoration. Vora was a graduate student finishing Acknowledgments. We thank Karen Ho for allowing us to share
her dissertation and just starting to consider questions of how her reviewer comments. We also thank Edmond Cho, Alessandro
to get her work published. For both of us, behind-the-scenes Duranti, Agustı́n Fuentes, Fran Mascia-Lees, and Bill Maurer for
experiences of what Boellstorff has termed “editwork” de- their comments on earlier drafts of this article.
mystified a process that can still produce anxiety, emotion,
and dread, particularly for junior scholars. Vora strongly 1. When we provide references from the various versions of
believes that her confidence to submit to top-tier journals Vora’s article to show how she is responding to editorial sug-
was aided by seeing articles submitted to AA—sometimes by gestions, we do not include them in the bibliography to this
“star” academics—that were very rough around the edges jointly authored article.
but that authors improved through revisions carried out in
dialogue with reviewer and editor comments. Understand-
ing the “anatomy of an article” made the idea of writing up
one’s research and getting it published less daunting. The REFERENCES CITED
key point is that scholarly articles are not polished objects Boellstorff, Tom
that emerge full-formed from the minds of geniuses laboring 2008 How to Get an Article Accepted at American Anthropologist
in isolation. Rather, articles are paths; they are the result of (or Anywhere). American Anthropologist 110(3):281–283.
a process of not just research but also the craft of writing. 2010 How to Get an Article Accepted at American Anthropologist
They are the product of a conversation between authors, (or Anywhere), Part 2. American Anthropologist 112(3):353–
reviewers, and editors, a collaboration whose details are 356.
usually hidden from others and referenced only obliquely in Vora, Neha
an author’s acknowledgments. 2011 From Golden Frontier to Global City: Shifting Forms of Be-
In this piece, we have worked to make a few examples longing, “Freedom,” and Governance among Indian Business-
of this typically unseen process of peer-review visible. In men in Dubai. American Anthropologist 113(2):306–318.