FOCUS AND SCOPE

The journal Runa, archivo para las ciencias del hombre is a publication of the Instituto de Ciencias Antropológicas -ICA- of the Facultad de Filosofía y Letras of the Universidad de Buenos Aires. The aim of the journal is to promote the debate and dissemination of anthropological, ethnographic and theoretical issues in the fields of social anthropology, ethnology, ethnohistory, biological anthropology and folklore, seeking to strengthen academic exchange within the framework of the Social and Human Sciences. It publishes original articles, lectures, interviews, translations, book reviews and debates. According to the section, the contributions received by the journal will be evaluated by a double-blind external peer review system.

Articles must meet the following requirements:

a) be unpublished, may not be simultaneously under evaluation in another publication, and must have been prepared during the year of submission;
b) make a contribution to the journal's areas of publication, clearly showing how the problems and data contribute to the current lines of debate in those areas;
c) present original results derived from research completed or in significant progress;
d) contain a clear methodological development and a consistent analysis of the data, and
e) Include a conceptual discussion and a relevant and updated bibliography on the subject matter.
Articles that do not comply with the journal's editorial guidelines will not be evaluated.

Although Runa is primarily edited in Spanish, it accepts and publishes articles in Spanish and Portuguese. It also welcomes contributions from any country, provided that they adhere to the journal's rules and policies.

Runa assumes a biannual periodicity (January-June and July-December) that includes regular publication and publication in electronic format on its website.

The estimated time between the receipt of contributions and their publication (if accepted) depends on the timing of the refereeing process and the editorial processes. It can be established, on average, between six months and one year from the receipt of the contribution.

 

Funding and commitment to open access Diamond

The journal is funded by the Universidad de Buenos Aires, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras and the Instituto de Ciencias Antropológicas (ICA) of the same faculty.

Runa is an open access journal that is committed to the policies of open access to scientific information. This journal considers that both scientific publications and publicly funded research should be freely available on the Internet without restrictions. In this regard, all content published in the journal is freely accessible to users and their institutions. Users may read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full text of articles, or utilize them for any other lawful purpose without seeking prior permission from the publisher or author. This aligns with the BOAI (Budapest Open Access Initiative) definition of open access.
Runa does not charge authors any fees for the publication (APC) of articles. All content in the electronic version is accessible free of charge, and no embargo is applied for access to it.

The journal's operational and organizational structure is as follows:

An Editorial Team, made up of the Editor-in-Chief and an Editorial Board composed of the Editorial Coordinator, an Editorial Committee, an Academic Advisory Committee and a Team of Associate/Executive Editors. It also has an Editorial Management and Production Team and the members of the Editorial Board are updated every four years.

Peer Review Process

RUNA employs external double-blind peer review to guarantee the quality of its contents. The estimated time for the evaluation process is approximately six to eight months.

The Editorial Committee initially reviews the original submissions to ensure both the correct compliance with the journal's editorial standards and the quality of the content.

If the article passes the initial review, the Editorial Team will select two external evaluators from the publishing institution with national and/or international affiliations for the review of the article. The evaluators will be researchers and/or academics with recognized experience and suitability in the area of the article to be evaluated and with an academic level identical or superior to that of the authors of the article.

The evaluators will have a time stipulated by the Editorial Committee of 30 (thirty) days to evaluate the article. The evaluators' opinions must be based on objective criteria of pertinence, originality, and academic quality, as established by the journal.

They may propose modifications related to the content, structure, methodology, data, and/or bibliographical references that they consider significant and pertinent to the evaluated work. Such recommendations should be based on criteria defined in the corresponding form, be objective and respectful of dissent, and promote the construction and critical exchange of ideas, while also guiding and improving the contributions. In accordance with the evaluation conducted by the reviewers, a decision should be selected from those defined by the journal.

  • The article is accepted for publication without any changes. The submission must meet the standards of a scientific article, be correctly structured and developed, and meet the requirements of the journal. These include originality, timeliness, correct writing, research, a clear methodological development, and a consistent analysis of the data, discussion with updated bibliography, and so forth.
    Should the reviewers reach a consensus on the evaluation, the authors will be informed of the acceptance of the article and the publication schedule. The article is then subjected to editing and proofreading.
  • Accept publication of the artícle with minor modifications. The submission meets the aforementioned requirements but requires minimal modifications of content, clarifications or improvements in style, orthotypographic correction, etc.
    In this case, unless explicitly requested by the evaluator, the article will not require a new review by the referee on the modifications made. The editorial team will be in charge of monitoring that the suggestions made are incorporated into the text by the author. If the reviewers agree, once the modifications have been made, the article is accepted and goes to the editing stage.
  • Accept publication of the article with major modifications. For articles that although they are considered within the aforementioned parameters, the evaluation requests major modifications as a requirement for acceptance. These modifications may refer to the content of the article, to the structure, to its writing, to the incorporation of more sustained data and/or arguments, to the bibliography, etc.
    The author(s) will be sent the opinions with the reviewers' suggestions and will have a period of 20 (twenty) days to make the suggested modifications. Once the article modified by the author is uploaded again to the system, a second round will be initiated in which the reviewers who requested modifications will participate, who must endorse -or not- the modifications, within a period of no more than 15 (fifteen) days.
    After this second round, if the article is approved in the modifications made, it goes to the editing stage. If the evaluators consider that the suggestions have not been incorporated, the Editorial Team may decide - according to the opinions and its academic criteria - to request new modifications from the author, or to reject it.
  • Reject the article for publication. The reviewer considers that the evaluated article has important flaws and/or does not meet the minimum requirements to be published in the journal according to its standards.
    If the reviewers' evaluation agrees not to accept the article for publication, the editors will inform the author(s) of the decision via e-mail along with the reviewers' opinions and/or an explanation of why the article is not pertinent for publication in Runa.

Resolution of controversies

In case of controversies between reviewers (an acceptance / rejection) the Editorial Committee will request the opinion of a third reviewer. If the evaluation results in a rejection and an acceptance with major modifications, the Editorial Committee will evaluate if it is pertinent to request the opinion of a third evaluator or suggest the author to rewrite his/her contribution and send it again.
The Editorial Committee has, in the last instance, the final decision to publish, archive or reject the contributions received. This decision is taken under its responsibility and according to the analysis of the opinions and the controversies that may have arisen in them. The Editorial Committee has the power to reject the contributions received at any stage of the process -even after having passed the reviewers' stage-, if any type of ethical misconduct or undeclared conflict of interest is detected.
In case the author is asked to make modifications, he/she must take into account the suggestions and observations of the reviewers and the Editorial Team of the journal, and must commit to make such modifications within 20 (twenty) days. At the moment of uploading the new document with the modifications made, the author should also send an e-mail to the editors with a copy to runa.revista@gmail.com with a document summarizing the changes made and/or, in case of not agreeing, nor incorporating suggested modifications, the justification for it. The result of the evaluation and the journal's decision will be communicated to the author within approximately six months. If this period is exceeded, the author will be informed of the situation in which they find themselves.

 

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR REVIEW AND CRITERIA TO BE TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT

Evaluations should be based on objective and impartial concepts, formulated in a respectful and constructive tone, and should be free of personal opinions or value judgments. If the reviewer does not consider themselves sufficiently expert or qualified to review an article, they should say so after reading the abstract, before the full article is sent to them.
Reviewers must be free of any conflict of interest related to the authors, the work or its funders that might bias their decision to accept or reject a particular manuscript, and if they have an insurmountable impediment they must declare it before the Editorial Committee sends them the full text of the manuscript.
It is the reviewers' responsibility to point out to the authors relevant references that they have not included in their work. It is also the reviewer's responsibility to alert the Editorial Board about an episode of double publication that has not been noticed by the Journal. The handling of papers submitted for evaluation should be completely confidential, and should not be shared with anyone.
We request commitment in complying with the deadlines stipulated by the Editorial Committee to carry out your evaluation, in case this is a problem for you, please communicate it to the editor. In the "About" page of the journal you will find a detailed description of the editorial approach and policy of the journal, as well as the roles and responsibilities of the different actors in the editorial process.
All communication to the authors, through the opinion of the evaluated work, should be objective and based on the suitability of the same, based on respect and critical construction, not containing dogmatic language or ideological biases.

ACADEMIC CRITERIA TO BE CONSIDERED

Contributions must be original and unpublished works that develop research in the field of social anthropology, ethnology, ethnohistory, biological anthropology or folklore, seeking to strengthen academic exchange within the framework of the Social and Human Sciences. They must be scientifically rigorous and be the result of the authors' current research, fulfilling the following requirements:

  1. make a contribution to one of the fields mentioned in the previous paragraph, clearly showing how the problems and data contribute to current lines of debate in the discipline;
  2. present original results derived from completed or significantly advanced research;
  3. contain a clear methodological development and a consistent analysis of the data;
  4. include a discussion of relevant and updated bibliography;

At the end of the questionnaire there is a section on possible ethical misconduct so that reviewers can report, if they consider it necessary, the existence of possible misconduct that will be dealt with by the editorial committee.

Declaration on conflicts of interest

The reviewers must explain if there are possible conflicts of interest with a brief description and argumentation of the same.
The reviewers should make their evaluation taking into account the above criteria and answering the following questions in order to prepare their opinion.

  1. Is the work clear and legible in terms of style? If not, indicate the difficulties.
  2. Are the title and abstract adequate? If not, indicate the difficulties.
  3. What is the purpose of the article and does it fulfill it (evaluate the formulation of the problem, the adequacy of the methodology and the axes of analysis)?
  4. Is the bibliography relevant, updated and sufficient? If not, indicate the difficulties.
  5. Is the methodology clearly formulated? If not, indicate the difficulties.
  6. Does it present a consistent data analysis? If no, indicate the difficulties.
  7. Does it make a contribution to your field in relation to current issues and debates in Anthropology? What is it?
  8. What is your recommendation regarding the publication of the work?

You must complete the respective fields, and according to your opinion, making critical remarks and suggestions to the author.
In the case of rejection, you should summarize your arguments that lead you to reject the publication of the article.

POSSIBLE ETHICAL MISCONDUCT

If you consider the possibility that some type of ethical misconduct or malpractice is being committed, please make it explicit in this section, describing the type of misconduct and the reasons why you consider it to be so. This will be evaluated and investigated by the editorial committee according to the procedures of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).