Latin America Research Commons (LARC) is the culmination of Latin American Studies Association (LASA)´s long tradition in promoting the dissemination of original research on Latin America in half a century of history. Through its flagship publication, the
Latin American Research Review (LARR), which was the first major interdisciplinary journal in the social sciences and humanities to go fully open access in January 2017, the goal of LARC is to publish original academic books in Spanish and Portuguese that follow international standards and host journals related to Latin American Studies.
Open Access implies a solution to the age-old problem of diffusion of scientific publications in our continent. Moreover, it contributes to the preservation of academic work and allows for the book to reach its target audience.
Open access is becoming the predominant model of publication for scholarly outputs. It´s a free, immediate and unrestricted publishing of peer-reviewed academic works that help to increase the visibility of research.
This license allows the unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction of the original by any means if cited properly. LARC books are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY-NC 4.0) license. Copyright is retained by the authors.
Yes. The ISBN is a book identifying number which carries the basic information of books such as the number of edition, print run, author, publisher, number of pages, and format.
A proposal must be submitted. It should include mainly the summary of the book to be published and a sample chapter. You should click on “Publish with us” in our website. Once there, you should click the link “submit – proposals”. Remember that by the time you submit a proposal, the book must be finished.
Unpublished academic work written in Spanish or Portuguese by one or more authors related to Latin American Studies. Edited volumes nor thesis will not be accepted. In case your book has its origins in a thesis, you may explain what changes were made to turn it into a book in the proposal. Books should have an extension between 87.000 and 174 words.
The editorial board is made up by prestigious scholars dedicated to social sciences and humanities.
They are:
Editors in Chief
Natalia Majluf, Independent scholar
Francisco Valdés Ugalde, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
Editorial Board
Velia Cecilia Bobes León, FLACSO México
María Rosa Olivera-Williams, University of Notre Dame
João Jose Reis, Historia, Universidade Federal da Bahía
Alejo Vargas V., Universidad Nacional de Colombia
Honorary Editorial Board – Kalman Silvert Awardees
Wayne A. Cornelius, University of California San Diego
Lars Schoultz, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Carmen Diana Deere, University of Florida
Julio Cotler+, Instituto de Estudios Peruanos
Richard Fagen, Stanford University
Manuel Antonio Garretón, Universidad de Chile
June Nash, City University of New York
Marysa Navarro, Dartmouth College and Harvard University
Peter Smith, University of California, San Diego
For more information, click on About Us.
LASA finances the publishing of 3 books per year.
Latin American Research Review’s policy is to perform double-blind reviews by two external specialists, in which the names of the author(s) and reviewers are not known to one another. In preparing your electronic submission for external review, we ask you to delete any inadvertent self-identification, e.g., “as this author has described elsewhere [cite]”; avoid multiple self-citations or citation of your unpublished materials (dissertations, etc.); delete acknowledgments of colleagues, institutional affiliations, or funding sources that could make identification of authorship likely; delete any reference to previous presentations of the paper in earlier draft form (at conferences or public seminars, etc.).
Once the evaluators review the text, a report is sent to the author for review. The editorial board can turn down manuscripts after peer review. Only when the author, editors and evaluator get to an agreement is a contract signed. Read more about our peer-review policy.
The reviewed version of manuscripts should follow LARC´s manual of style in Spanish or Portuguese.
Authors should remember that once originals are formatted, it will not be possible to make further changes, unless there is a common agreement with the editorial board.
The publication process comprises two steps that could take up to one year each. The first one corresponds to the completion of the manuscript and the second one involves the publishing process.
Concerning the first one, once the applicant submits the proposal, the editors-in-chief will go over it to make sure it complies with the requested terms.
The editorial board will issue a statement about your work two months after submission. In case it is accepted, the final version of your manuscript will be required for evaluation. If your manuscript is accepted by the editorial board, it will be sent for peer review by two specialists.
If deemed necessary by the editorial board, your manuscript will be peer reviewed by two specialists. Later, the comments will be sent to you for revision.
Once the comments of the author are received, the editorial board of LARC will review the proposal and take the final decision over the acceptance of it. When the proposal is accepted, a contract is signed between the author and LARC to continue with the editorial production.
During the whole process, it is requested that the author do not share the manuscript with other press. The whole process from the submission to the publication could last up to two years.
After signing the contract, the text goes to copyediting. The author will be able to see the modifications in a change control Word document. Once they are approved, the text goes to typesetting and cover design.
Cover design suggestions by the author will be considered, but LARC has rights over the final design of the books.
Once the text has been designed, the author can see the proofs. Revision does not admit changes, unless requested by LARC.
The author should make their comments and give the proof back to LARC. Once a satisfactory final version is achieved, the author must authorize the publication. This certifies that the author takes on responsibility for the final text, so LARC does not have any responsibility for alterations or errors in the signed copy.
While your manuscript is being processed by LARC, we require that you do not share the manuscript until the final decision of the editorial board has been made.
Besides the digital versions in PDF, Epub and MOBI, print versions of LARC books can be accessed by print-on-demand for an additional cost.
LARC books are downloadable from Open Access Publishing in European Networks (OAPEN), Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) and unglue.it and indexed in OCLC Worldcat. You can also find them in our website by clicking on Books. You can read the book online or download it in PDF, Epub, MOBI or print-on-demand.
Through LARC´s membership in CLOCKSS (Controlled Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe) our content is regularly archived with many of the world's leading research libraries. The CLOCKSS archive ensures that the LARC content will always be made available as open access, in any eventuality. Libraries can also have the book by print-on-demand.
All our content is assigned a Digital Object Identifier (DOI). This means that all our references are made available so that citations can be tracked by the publishing community. All of our publications metadata is openly available for harvesting by indexing services via Open Archive Initiative-Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) and the journals are registered with Open Archives.
Once the book is published, LASA will send a newsletter to all members. We will invite you to present your book in the annual LASA Congress. Books will be promoted in the congress program and in LASA´s display in the Book Exhibit. Moreover, all the activities related to LASA books will be announced through LARC´s social media network.
Yes. You should click on Partnerships to see our modalities and in case you have questions, please contact lasa@pitt.edu