About the Journal

Focus and Scope

Revista Rupturas is a biannual digital journal. Its first issue covers the months of January to June and is published in January of each year. The second issue is published in July and covers the months of July to December.

Journal Objectives

  1. To provide a space for scientific exchange, reflection, and debate from different theoretical approaches and epistemological and methodological perspectives related to the social sciences.
  2. To promote collaboration among diverse disciplinary perspectives, as well as interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research, including dialogue, engagement, and collaboration between the social and natural sciences.
  3. To publish theoretical, practical, and methodological applications of social research used to address different social phenomena.
  4. To present and disseminate the contribution made by UNED to research on topics pertaining to the social sciences in relation to societal challenges and the processes of sociocultural, economic, and political change experienced by societies in Mesoamerica, Latin America, and the world.
  5. To disseminate unpublished articles on different aspects of social, economic, and cultural reality that are solidly grounded.
  6. To present contributions whose originality is valuable for pluralistic analysis and for the critical and in-depth understanding of issues related to culture and development.
  7. To create a space for debate and reflection aimed at formulating alternative proposals in the areas of public policy, civic organization, and other fields pertaining to the research areas of CICDE.

Thematic Scope

The journal's thematic scope lies within the field of the social sciences, with an emphasis on the study of processes of change and rupture in Latin American societies, the complex and dynamic emergence of new realities and actors in sociocultural and political spheres, and processes of economic realignment and restructuring. The journal seeks not only to shed light on the profound uncertainties generated by these major ruptures, but also to contribute to the development of transformative responses to such social challenges. All of this is guided by a commitment to transdisciplinary dialogue, theoretical and methodological synthesis, and epistemological pluralism and openness.

Target Audience

The journal is primarily aimed at academics—engaged in research, teaching, and outreach—and students working in different areas of the social sciences who are interested in current processes of change in Latin American societies, or who are engaged in research and theoretical, epistemological, and methodological endeavors that seek to explore transdisciplinarity, critical epistemological approaches, and perspectives open to plurality, dialogue, and collaboration between the social and natural sciences.

Peer Review Process

Article Selection Policy

Rupturas is an interdisciplinary journal dedicated to disseminating research outputs in the social sciences. The journal publishes articles that study and analyze in depth and with the utmost rigor the processes of change and rupture experienced by contemporary societies, as well as articles that offer innovative interpretations or proposals providing advanced and democratic responses to the challenges posed by such transformations.

This peer-reviewed journal seeks to follow the standards applicable to scientific publications while, nevertheless, not restricting itself to the traditional understanding of what constitutes scientific work. This means that Rupturas also incorporates rigorous and academically significant contributions from philosophy and the humanities. Works that clearly fall outside the journal's thematic and problem-oriented scope, or that lack the appropriate structure to be considered an academic article, will be excluded.

Each submitted article undergoes a double-blind peer-review process, in which at least two external reviewers assess the manuscript. The Editorial Board is ultimately responsible for deciding whether an article will be published.

The article selection process at Rupturas follows the procedure below:

  1. Receipt of articles: Upon receiving the original article and any associated files, preferably by email, an acknowledgment of receipt will be sent to the email address provided by the author. This does not preclude subsequent communications from the editor requesting corrections to formatting or presentation errors or compliance with the journal's publication guidelines. Receipt of an article does not imply a commitment to publish it. If the required sworn declaration stating that the article is unpublished is not provided, the manuscript will not proceed to evaluation.
  2. Once the article has been received in accordance with the publication guidelines, a new acknowledgment of receipt will be sent, and the author's identity will be kept confidential in order to ensure a greater degree of impartiality in the subsequent evaluation of the manuscript. Only the editor will know the identity of the article's author.
  3. Selection of external reviewers: Preferably, the Editorial Board will propose several potential reviewers to assess the article. Academic credentials and professional experience will be considered when selecting reviewers. The Director will select the final reviewers after excluding those who may have a close relationship with the author. Only the Director and the editor will know the identity of the final reviewer. The author will not be informed of the reviewers' identities. Likewise, the reviewers will not know the authorship of the manuscript (double-blind review).
  4. Review by external reviewers: Selected articles will be evaluated by at least two reviewers, who will issue an assessment concerning the academic quality and rigor of the submitted article, taking into account the objectives of Rupturas. Reviewers will normally have three weeks to complete their assessments. The decision letter sent to the author may also include comments from the Editorial Board.

  5. Editorial Board deliberation: The Editorial Board will meet at least twice per semester and will make a final decision on each evaluated article, taking into account summaries of the reviewers' reports prepared by the Editorial Board's leadership in collaboration with the editor. At this stage, one of the following four decisions will be adopted:

    a) The article is approved for publication as submitted, and the author will be informed of the volume and issue in which the article will be published.

    b) Publication is conditional upon minor revisions. The author will therefore be asked to make the corresponding corrections and will receive a summary of the review report. The changes made by the author will be reviewed by the Editorial Board's leadership. Once the corrections have been approved, the author will be informed of the volume and issue in which the article will be published.

    c) Publication is conditional upon major revisions. The author will be asked to revise the article as a necessary condition for publication, taking into account the summary of the reviewer's report prepared by the Editorial Board's leadership. The author will have two weeks to submit the revised article to the editor. The revised version and the review report will be examined by the Editorial Board's leadership or another Board member, who will briefly assess whether the reviewer's comments have been addressed. If the Board members are unable to adequately assess the quality of the revisions, the revised article will be sent back to the reviewer for further evaluation. The article will only be considered approved once this second review has been completed and the revised version has subsequently been approved by the Editorial Board's leadership or another Board member.

    d) Publication is rejected, with reasons provided, and the article may not be resubmitted in revised form.

The evaluation criteria used to justify the acceptance or rejection of an article include, among others, its originality; clarity of exposition and effective contribution to the development of the proposed topic; positioning in relation to relevant theoretical debates concerning the topic or problem addressed; argumentative strength; rigor in the analysis of information; relevance, currency, and comprehensiveness of the sources consulted; and, finally, the logical and coherent derivation of the conclusions, ensuring that they are grounded in the theoretical approach adopted and the findings presented.

Open Access Policy

Rupturas is a free and open-access journal. There are no charges to authors for submitting articles, nor for their processing or publication. Likewise, all journal content is freely accessible, and articles can be downloaded at no cost.

The author retains copyright. However, authors expressly authorize this journal to disseminate the full and complete text, as well as abstracts and keywords, through networks, information sources, databases, and any other dissemination system, without receiving any payment in return.

All content is freely available to readers at no cost. Visitors may read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of articles published in this journal without prior permission from the editor or author, provided that the following conditions are respected:

  1. The authorship of the work is clearly acknowledged.
  2. The article is not used for commercial purposes.
  3. Any derivative works must also be distributed under a license similar to this one.

Rupturas authorizes authors of published works to subsequently upload their articles to their personal websites, blogs, or other open-access repositories, provided that an explicit and clearly visible reference is included indicating the volume, issue, and year in which the work was published by Revista Rupturas, together with the journal's URL.

For more information, please visit http://creativecommons.org/

Plagiarism Policy

Rupturas promotes original and innovative research in the social sciences and encourages respect for the work and contributions of each researcher. For this reason, we carefully monitor the journal to prevent any form of plagiarism that infringes upon the moral rights of other authors.

Every article received by Rupturas undergoes a plagiarism screening process before entering the editorial workflow. This screening is conducted while maintaining the anonymity of the author or authors in order to ensure impartiality throughout the process. The results of the screening are discussed and assessed by the editors, who determine whether plagiarism is present, as well as its frequency, type, and intent. Articles found to contain plagiarism will be rejected by the journal, and the Editorial Board will discuss the appropriate measures and actions at its next meeting.

At Rupturas, plagiarism is understood as:

The deliberate reproduction of texts or contributions previously presented by another author and presenting them as one's own without crediting the original source through proper citation; providing false or inaccurate information about sources and references; as well as presenting contributions or products from an existing source as if they were new.

Once plagiarism by an author has been detected, the members of the Editorial Board will deliberate on the seriousness of the situation and consider appropriate actions in addition to rejecting the proposed article.

Use of Artificial Intelligence

Revista Rupturas adheres to the Heredia Declaration, which proposes ethical guidelines and a set of recommendations for integrating artificial intelligence (AI) responsibly into academic publishing. The use of AI must be strictly limited to a supporting role and must never replace human judgment, authorship, writing, or accountability.

Code of Ethics

Revista Rupturas publishes only original works based on appropriate scientific procedures. When authors submit a manuscript, they legally affirm that they have complied with all relevant legislation and ethical principles; that all co-authors have participated in the principal aspects of the research and agree to its publication; and that the study is original, scientifically valid, has not been previously published, and has not been submitted simultaneously to another journal.

The journal supports the international ethical standards and codes established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), including the Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors. To download the document, click on the following link: Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors.

Digital Preservation Policy

All content available on the Revista Rupturas website is backed up daily on the servers of the State Distance University (UNED), the journal's publisher. The unit responsible for carrying out these backups is the Directorate of Information and Communications Technology (DTIC), using two types of storage: hard-disk storage in a system known as SAN, and magnetic-tape storage in a backup robot. In addition, Revista Rupturas maintains its own backup of all information, content, articles, and communications on an external hard drive dedicated exclusively to this purpose.

This journal uses the LOCKSS system to create a distributed archive among participating libraries, allowing these libraries to create permanent archives of the journal for preservation and restoration purposes (www.lockss.org).

Interoperability Protocol

For information about the interoperability protocol, please visit: https://revistas.uned.ac.cr/index.php/rupturas/oai

Publishing Entity

Center for Research in Culture and Development (CICDE) of the State Distance University (UNED) of Costa Rica.

Physical address: Fourth floor of the Dr. Celedonio Ramírez Ramírez Research, Innovation and Development Building (II+D Building), Fernando Volio Jiménez University Campus, Central Campus. Office of the Vice President for Research, State Distance University. From La Betania roundabout, 500 meters east, on the road to Sabanilla, Mercedes de Montes de Oca, San José 474-2050, Costa Rica.