Iberoamerican Psychology: Challenges to the visibility of regional knowledge

Resumen

Knowledge transfer involves the possibilities and actions related to creating, distributing and consuming knowledge in a certain area, not limited to traditional communication media, and specialised in optimising consumption channels and the breadth of the information (Echaverría Ezponda, 2008; Sebastián, 2007). These knowledge transfer processes are central to the production of knowledge, especially in those countries in which capacities have not been fully developed due to socioeconomic factors (Echaverría Ezponda, 2008; Macilwain, 2013). Even so, emerging economies such as Brazil, India, Russia and South Africa, for example, have no other alternative than to seek investment in building their own capacity to develop knowledge, since knowledge is vital to the development of their societies (“Capacity building: Architects of South American science,” 2014, “Stars of South American science.,” 2014; Van Noorden, 2014). Economic and social transformations depend, amongst other factors, on structural changes (socioeconomic, sociopolitical, socio-legal, socio-environmental and psychosocial) that necessarily imply changes in education, promotion and knowledge production systems. These are, in turn, linked to cooperation and knowledge transfer. Countries undergoing these dynamic processes are usually creating endogamic knowledge systems with low visibilities. This results in the omission by international indexing systems of the production from Latin America and other regions. (Alperin, 2014). Some of these changes involve investment on researcher training, economic support to production, knowledge transfer, creation of cooperation networks, interinstitutional agreements, and visibility of journal contents (Salazar-Acosta, Lucio-Arias, López-López, & Aguado-López, 2013). Brazil, for instance, has invested strongly on research, on its doctoral programme offer, on increasing publications—nowadays it is one of the countries that contribute the most to Psychology journals in the world (García-Martínez, Guerrero-Bote, & Moya-Anegón, 2012; Van Noorden, 2014). This exponential growth has been experienced by journals that have entered international indexes (Van Noorden, 2014). It is worth noting, though, that most journals only publish their own production, which has unfortunately generated endogamic practices that impair knowledge internationalistation, that is, they disallow visibility and knowledge transfer processes from including the developments and contributions of Brazilian Psychology into the wealth of international knowledge, and sometimes even into the regional incidence context; this is one challenge that an economy regarded as a main centre of science and cooperation in Iberoamerica (Van Noorden, 2014) will have to tackle. Conversely, in Colombia, ranked third in terms of number of journals contributed to international databases after Spain and Brazil, journals feature articles by a broader linguistic community, more so than national production. This is the Iberoamerican community. The quality of its journals and its exogamic practices have created journals that serve as scenarios for regional dialogue, and make it possible to speak of an IBEROAMERICAN PSYCHOLOGY. The Colombian journals that have gained coverage by international and regional databases such as PSYCINFO, Scopus, Web of Science, DOAJ, SciELO, Redalyc, amongst others, hold Iberoamerican knowledge. (Alperin, 2014). However, further visibility of regional knowledge is required before international Psychology acknowledges an emerging output that has influence not only in the Iberoamerican academic community, but also on over 400 million Spanish speakers. If we include Brazil, that number becomes 700 million, which is why understanding the dynamics and features of Iberoamerican Psychological production is critical. (Chinchilla-Rodríguez, Vargas-Quesada, Hassan-Montero, González-Molina, & Moya-Anegón, 2009; García-Martínez et al., 2012). Finally, it is clear that our communities have learned how to publish and are now learning to use that knowledge and express it in academic (research and citations, for example), professional (assessment and intervention practices) and social knowledge appropriation scenarios (García-Martínez, Guerrero-Bote, Hassan-Montero, & Moya-Anegón, 2009). These are long-term processes, that seem to be irreversible and independent of the supremacy currently held by Anglo-American Psychology. Iberoamerican Psychology is there and its development will surely depend on strengthening collaboration processes and on its visibilisation in the international context.