The SSH journals in Argentina: segmented circuits of circulation and prestige

BEIGEL, FERNANDA; SALATINO, MAXIMILIANO

Budapest

Simposio; COLOQUIO INTERCOSSH; 2015

INTERCOSSH

Argentina represents a complex and interesting case to explore new forms of scientific peripheriality. After a period of military dictatorships and economic crisis (1976-2003), it emerges currently as a dynamic, predominantly public and professionalized scientific field. Research capacities and material resources have increased geometrically in the last decade, but the structural heterogeneity of the field has been reinforced, due to segmented circuits and an unequal distribution of scientific power between disciplines and institutions. Scientific policies are concentrating full-time researchers and material resources at CONICET, widening the distance with public Universities located in the hinterlands, thus increasing the division between research and teaching. Diverse evaluative cultures are consolidating according with the institution: one clearly internationalized at CONICET and another more nationally-oriented at the public universities. Fernanda Beigel and Maximiliano Salatino (CONICET-UNCuyo) have built a database with the universe of all active Argentinian SSH journals (468). Many of these are indexed and disseminated internationally or regionally, mostly at Latin American repositories such as LATINDEX-C, SciELO or REDALyC. But a sizable share is besieged by severe circulation limitations: 222/468 are not available in full text, or are not indexed in any repository, or are still printed only on paper. As a result, these only circulate locally. The figure shows the publishing circuits in Argentina according with their interconnections and scope of circulation, pointing out a large local circuit featured by its isolation and restriction to small circles fed by nationally-oriented scientists.