Assessing bank dissertations and theses of the Brazilian Association of Anthropology: a scientometric analysis

Abstract

This report presents research currently  underway  for the Master’s in Biblioteconomics of the PUC-Campinas/SP, in reference to academic production in the area of Anthropology at Brazilian universities.  Using scienciometric  analysis, an attempt is made to measure and compare the contribution of each institution to anthropological research in the country, as well as to plot the evolution of woman participation in this discipline,  point out the geographical areas more widely studied,  discover the most discussed issues and cast some light on certain social, political and institutional factors  that may have had an incidence on increasing or decreasing the choice of certain topics apart from illustrating the application of different quantitative indicators in an electronic data bank.  That is, research goals and a description of their object, the methodology used, the procedure for empiric material collection and the data analysis plan are presented. A bibliographic revision is carried out of existing studies on the subject inside and outside Brazil for the purpose of giving a overview of quantitative papers related with Anthropology.  Lastly,  this paper intends to demonstrate how such research may, to a certain extent,  contribute to the development of this specific topic within the fields of Anthropology and Information Science.