Publication patterns in the Argentinian social sciences and humanities: multilinguism, regionalization, and academic evaluation

Abstract

The article presents the characteristics of the academic production of a sample of history and sociology researchers in 2007-2016. Aspects discussed include publication types, languages employed and location of the editorial office of the chosen journals. We found that the types of publication connected to applied research are more present in sociology than in history. The proportion of books is around 10%, book chapters between 30 and 40% and articles range between 45% and 60%. Spanish is the most chosen language and represents 92% of the production in history and 89% in sociology. The proportion of authors who publish in English increases steadily in both disciplines. Ibero-American magazines have gained importance in sociology compared to national ones. Publication in global magazines occupies between 10% and 15%. In the discussion we relate these trends to evaluation criteria. Based on the data, we point out the importance of analyzing differences between disciplines within the broader field of social sciences and humanities. In the case studied, we found limited evidence regarding the globalization of publication practices. However, we do observe a strong recent trend in the social sciences towards regionalization.