Equity in Author Order: A Feminist Laboratory’s Approach
authors: Max Liboiron, Justine Ammendolia, Katharine Winsor, Alex Zahara, Hillary Bradshaw, Jessica Melvin, Charles Mather, Natalya Dawe, Emily Wells, France Liboiron, Bojan Fürst, Coco Coyle, Jacquelyn Saturno, Melissa Novacefski, Sam Westscott, Grandmother Liboiron
doi: 10.28968/cftt.v3i2.28850
CITATION
Liboiron, M., Ammendolia, J., Winsor, K., Zahara, A., Bradshaw, H., Melvin, J., Mather, C., Dawe, N., Wells, E., Liboiron, F., Fürst, B., Coyle, C., Saturno, J., Novacefski, M., Westscott, S., & Liboiron, G. (2017). Equity in Author Order: A Feminist Laboratory’s Approach. Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience, 3(2), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.28968/cftt.v3i2.28850
ABSTRACT
Author order is crucial; it is the currency of academia. Within STEM disciplines, women and junior researchers—those who are the primary constituents of our lab— consistently receive less credit for equal work. Our Civic Laboratory for Environmental Action Research (CLEAR) is a feminist marine science laboratory at Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada. Recognizing that the stakes are high for CLEAR members, we have developed an approach to author order that emphasizes process and equity rather than system and equality. Our process is premised on: 1) deciding author order vy consensus; 2) valuing care work and other forms of labour that are usually left out of scientific value systems; and 3) taking intersectional social standing into account. Although CLEAR’s approach differs from others’, we take author order seriously as a compromised but dominant structure within science we must contend with. That is, rather than attempt to circumvent author order, we stay with the trouble. This article outlines this process.
fleeting notes
equity in authorship order requires diverging from conventional metric systems
- the most common way of assigning authorship and the order of those authors on the manuscript usually depends on their “intellectual contributions”. However, this is usually a murky gray area and rarely made explicit about what actually merits a significant contribution to the project.
- Liboiron, et al. offer their approach to creating equity in authorship, which considers social standings of individuals (authorship order may have more impact for some folks), amount of care work, and group consensus.
- In practice, members discuss contributions of each other in the form of acknowledging each others work. This serves the purpose to thank each other and reinforce the values of the lab (especially the more invisible contributions like care work).
- “Care is a form of political and ethical practice”, and disproportionately affects different groups based on their identity. Care work is time dedicated for purposes beyond one’s own immediate or personal gain. It could include training others, maintaining equipment, cleaning, note taking, scheduling, caring for others mental and physical health, making lab a fun place to be, and thanking each other.