About the Journal

Definition of the Journal

Cuadernos de Antropología aims to disseminate and facilitate academic discussion in the fields of Social Anthropology, Biological Anthropology, Ethnohistory, Linguistic Anthropology, Archaeology, and related disciplines, relevant to Central America, Mexico, the Insular Caribbean, and Northwest Colombia. The journal is intended for the academic and professional community, and anyone, local or international, interested in the subject matter. The following types of works are published:

  1. Original and unpublished articles derived from research;
  2. Review articles, about relevant thematic areas;
  3. Book reviews, for works published within the last three years;
  4. Academic essays on theoretical, methodological, or epistemological topics of interest;
  5. Unpublished translations.

Peer Evaluation Process

When submitting a document for evaluation, the authors agree to be governed by the editorial guidelines of Cuadernos de Antropología, which are valid throughout the management process. Submissions received for evaluation will go through the following process:

  1. Each submission will be checked to determine whether the manuscript meets the minimum conditions required in terms of format and contribution to the field of Anthropology, based on the definition of the journal, for the Editorial Board to initiate editorial management.
  2. If the document is initially approved, it will move on to a second anonymous review by at least two academic peers outside the publishing institution, jointly elected by the Editorial Board and the International Scientific Committee. Neither the authors nor the academic peers will be aware of the identity of each other (double-blind review).
  3. Three decisions can result from this academic peer review: 1)The manuscript is not recommended for publication; 2)The manuscript is recommended for publication; 3)The manuscript is recommended for publication subject to the author making modifications to the aspects identified by the reviewers and by the editors of the journal. In this case, the document will be returned to the authors for them to consider and incorporate suggested observations, and then return the corrected manuscript.

The duration of the editorial and review process is typically of 3 to 5 months from the moment of reception of the manuscript documents to the final editorial decision.

Evaluation Form

Cuadernos de Antropología asks evaluators to complete an evaluation form which they make their final editorial recommendation. Each element to be evaluated is rated as satisfactory, unsatisfactory or need improvement. These are the aspects to be evaluated:

1- Evaluation

  1. The title accurately reflects the subject of the manuscript and the main constructs studied.
  2. The proposal offers an original approach to a relevant research problem.
  3. The purpose of the study is clearly stated.
  4. The purpose of the study is clear and derives directly from the research literature reviewed.
  5. The purpose of the study is consistent with the results.

2- Problem Addressed

  1. The title accurately reflects the subject of the manuscript and the main constructs studied.
  2. The proposal offers an original approach to a relevant research problem.
  3. The purpose of the investigation is clearly understood.
  4. The background research under review is up to date and relevant to the study.
  5. The procedures that led to the collection of the data are adequately explained.
  6. The proposal offers congruence with the research results.
  7. The theoretical model has logical-argumentative consistency and is clearly exposed.
  8. The data built allow the reader to corroborate the relevance of the analyses performed.
  9. There is consistency between research problem, theoretical notions, methodological procedures, data exposure and conclusions throughout the document.

3- Final Editorial Recommendation

  1. Acceptance without changes is recommended.
  2. Acceptance is recommended, but it would require changes according to observations.
  3. Rejection is recommended:
    1. The contribution is not substantial enough (relevant questions are not answered);
    2. It is inappropriate for this journal (does not respond to the editorial line);
    3. It presents methodological problems;
    4. It presents serious ethical problems;
    5. It has other substantive problems such as the following.

4- General Remarks

Ad Portas Rejection

The following may be considered the subject of immediate rejection by the Editorial Board:

  1. Documents considered to be outside the journal's definition;
  2. Documents that do not comply with the submission format, as indicated in the guidelines for authors;
  3. Submissions that do not include the originality statement and the permits to use published materials;
  4. Non-compliance by the authors with the time ranges established for each of the stages within the editorial management process.

Frequency of Publication

 Cuadernos de Antropología is a semi-annual digital journal published in January for January-June and July for July-December. Both the reception of manuscripts for evaluation and their publication are carried out continuously throughout the year. In addition, approved submissions are published as soon as they are available and incorporated into the table of contents of the volume currently in-process.

Access and Reuse Policies

Cuadernos de Antropología provides free and immediate access to its content, under the principle of making research available to the public for free and encouraging greater exchange of knowledge.

All published articles are protected under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 DEED) license, which allows sharing, copying, and redistributing the material in any medium or format, as well as adapting, remixing, transforming, and creating from the material.

For this reason, authors are free to publish any version of their work on any repository or website, including pre-publish drafts and updated versions. Users may read, download, copy, distribute, print, and search for articles in the journal, without prior authorization from the publisher or author, provided that the information is used for educational and non-profit purposes.

Licencia Creative Commons

Journal's Ethical Principles and Best Practices

Cuadernos de Antropología is governed by ethical standards that derive from national and international standards for the publication of documents, which includes all those involved in the editorial process—editorial persons, editorial boards, authors, and evaluators—in order to promote and guarantee transparency, ethical use, objectivity, and rigor of the entire editorial management process. Some of these principles include the following:

Ethical Principles of the Members of the Editorial Committee and the International Scientific Council

  1. Do not discriminate against authors and evaluators by gender, sexual orientation, religion, politics, ethnicity, country of origin or other;
  2. Respond with objective arguments to the questions and concerns of authors to the results of the evaluations;
  3. Respond with objective arguments to the concerns of evaluators;
  4. Abide by the confidentiality of the information of all persons involved in the editorial process—authors, evaluators, editors, editorial boards;
  5. Speed the publishing process to meet the deadlines, according to the resources available;
  6. Search for the highest possible quality of the work to be published, both in terms of form and content, with the support of the evaluators' recommendations;
  7. Communicate diligently and effectively with the authors in the process of reviewing the texts until the entire editorial process is complete;
  8. Carefully review the articles received by the journal to detect plagiarism;
  9. Follow procedures established at the national and international level to investigate ethical allegations about published or in-process articles;
  10. Promote ethical and academic attitudes and procedures of research and publication in authors;
  11. Follow appropriate technical procedures to safeguard the journal's information;
  12. Execute the journal's editorial policies;
  13. Refrain from publishing in the journal.

Ethical Principles of Evaluators

  1.  Refrain from evaluating articles whose author's identity you know, for reasons beyond the journal's control, or if there is any conflict of interest with the work you are invited to review;
  2. Abide by objectivity in evaluating articles and make reasoned recommendations;
  3. Set out the reasons why an article is rejected and give suggestions to strengthen it;
  4. Deliver the requested evaluation in the time stipulated by the journal;
  5. Write assessments using academic language;
  6. Communicate with publishers about possible plagiarism in the evaluated articles.

Ethical Principles of Authors

  1. Send to the journal original works;
  2. Provide the journal with accurate personal information;
  3. Do not submit an article that is under evaluation by another journal;
  4. Do not engage in plagiarism or self-plagiarism;
  5. Comply with all journal standards;
  6. Respond with objective arguments to the questions and concerns of publishers and evaluators;
  7. Manage permissions to use images and other materials;
  8. Verify that the investigation from which the article derives complies with all national and international standards for working with humans and animals. Also, comply with informed consents, if required;
  9. Develop original, responsible, and ethical research;
  10. Present the results of investigations in an ethical and transparent manner;
  11. Inform the journal if, at any time, you find any important errors in the publication and collaborate with the correction procedure.

Plagiarism Detection

Cuadernos de Antropología abides by the regulations present in Law No. 6683 and its reforms, Law 7979 Law on Copyright and Related Rights of the Republic of Costa Rica, on Intellectual Property and Copyright. Turnitin's services are used as the primary tool to detect possible plagiarism within documents that are in the process of editorial management. In addition, anonymous reviewers are asked to notify the journal whenever suspicious of plagiarism.

In the event that the persons in charge of the editorial management process, or the readers, find any error, manipulation of quotations, plagiarism, duplicate sending, re-publication, falsification of data or other unethical practices, they are required to inform the Editorial Board—a body that is under the obligation to carry out the corresponding investigations. If fault is found, the journal may ask the International Scientific Committee to retract the document or add errata to it.

Digital Preservation Policy

Cuadernos de Antropología uses the LOCKSS system to create a file distributed among participating libraries. The system allows them to create permanent journal files for preservation and restoration purposes. In addition, it belongs to the PKP Preservation Network, which provides preservation to any OJS journals. The manuscripts and final articles are preserved in digital format on the magazine's website and in an electronic archive. Documents such as forms of evaluators, records, emails received and their official electronic replies, letters received or issued in physical or electronic form, minutes of meetings of the editorial boards, and others, are also stored in an electronic archive of the journal and in the electronic and physical archive of the Center for Anthropological Research (CIAN) of the University of Costa Rica.

Interoperability Protocol

Cuadernos de Antropología uses the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAIPMH), which allows for the transferring of digital resources, mainly of a scientific and free-access nature. More details at https://revistas.ucr.ac.cr/index.php/antropologia/oai.

Sponsors

Cuadernos de Antropología is a publication funded publicly through the University of Costa Rica. Its editorial independence and ethical compliance are guaranteed by the rules of the Publishing System for Scientific Research Diffusion (SIEDIN, by its acronym in Spanish).

History of the Journal

In 1982, the first issue of Cuadernos de Antropología was published under the coordination of Professor Nancy Cartín-Leiva, within the framework of the María Eugenia Bozzoli Vargas Ethnology Laboratory of the Department of Anthropology, in the former School of Anthropology and Sociology. Since then, the journal has been transformed to improve its format and content, in line with technological and editorial advances. In the first editions, the text was typed, printed in stencils, and did not include photographs or figures.

The editorial line favored the internal work of the then Department of Anthropology because the published documents included field work reports made by the faculty members of the academic unit, reports by the College Community Service (TCU, by its acronym in Spanish), and[caJ1] teaching related texts. From 2000 on, a broader editorial policy was redefined, which accepted research advances by discipline professionals working in different national or international institutions or independently. In 2005, the journal entered Latindex and set the goal of being indexed in other catalogs. Until 2007, it was a print publication, and in 2008, it began its digitization with the double issue 17-18. Until issue 19, the journal was both printed and digital.

In 2010, the Vice Rector of Research developed a policy to strengthen and internationalize the journals of the University of Costa Rica. As a result, its coordination became independent from that of the Laboratory of Ethnology coordination. In addition, its digital format was strengthened. In 2013, a technical editor was appointed in a permanent position to support the journal's management and publication. In 2014, there was a regular edition of two issues per year. In March 2017, with the creation of the Center for Anthropology Research (CIAN), the journal became part of this center and enriched its editorial policy.

A detailed historical review about the birth of Cuadernos de Antropología, can be consulted in the paper by Dr. María del Carmen Araya Jiménez -former director of the journal- entitled Cuarenta años de Cuadernos de Antropología, herencia del Laboratorio de Etnología "María Eugenia Bozzoli Vargas".