World's Best Scientists 2026 revealed!
Social Anthropology
H-index 5

Social Anthropology

Ranking & Metrics

Discipline name Position Best Scientists Publications D-Index
Social Sciences and Humanities 1034 7 9 5

Additional Metrics

Number of Best Scientists*: 7
Documents by Best Scientists*: 9
Top 100 Ranked Scientists*: 0
SCIMAGO H-index: 54
SCIMAGO SJR: 0.326
Impact Factor: 1.5

Overview

Top Research Topics at Social Anthropology?

The journal mainly deals with areas of study such as Anthropology, Humanities, Gender studies, Media studies and Ethnology. Ethnography is part of Anthropology studies tackled in it. It focused on Gender studies research but expanded to cover Politics.

  • Anthropology (20.40%)
  • Humanities (8.74%)
  • Gender studies (8.61%)

What are the most cited papers published in the journal?

  • Three steps to a historical anthropology of actually existing neoliberalism (355 citations)
  • Global pathways. Working class cosmopolitans and the creation of transnational ethnic worlds (312 citations)
  • Law and disorder in the postcolony (294 citations)

Research areas of the most cited articles at Social Anthropology:

The published papers mainly tackle studies in Ethnology, Politics, Gender studies, Epistemology and Humanities. While work presented in the most cited articles provide substantial information on Ethnology, it also covers topics in Globalization, Ideology and Immigration. The most cited papers explore topics in Politics which can be helpful for research in disciplines like Political economy, Corporate governance and State (polity).

What topics the last edition of the journal is best known for?

  • World War II
  • Law
  • China

The previous edition focused in particular on these issues:

Ethnography, Anthropology, Religious studies, Politics and Far right are the subjects of interest in Social Anthropology. Politics study tackled is connected to the field of Political economy. It connects the study in Political economy with the closely related area of Competition (economics).

The most cited articles from the last journal are:

  • Grammars of liberalism (2 citations)
  • Utopian confluences: anthropological mappings of generative politics (2 citations)
  • ‘When I see what democracy is…’: bleak liberalism in a French court (1 citations)

Papers citation over time

A key indicator for each journal is its effectiveness in reaching other researchers with the papers published at that venue.

The chart below presents the interquartile range (first quartile 25%, median 50% and third quartile 75%) of the number of citations of articles over time.

The top authors publishing in Social Anthropology (based on the number of publications) are:

  • Jan De Wolf (41 papers) published 1 paper at the last edition, 1 less than at the previous edition,
  • Carolina Ivanescu (13 papers) absent at the last edition,
  • Cristiana Panella (13 papers) absent at the last edition,
  • Nigel Rapport (12 papers) absent at the last edition,
  • Marilyn Strathern (11 papers) published 1 paper at the last edition the same number as at the previous edition.

The overall trend for top authors publishing in this journal is outlined below. The chart shows the number of publications at each edition of the journal for top authors.

Only papers with recognized affiliations are considered

The top affiliations publishing in Social Anthropology (based on the number of publications) are:

  • Utrecht University (51 papers) published 2 papers at the last edition the same number as at the previous edition,
  • Austrian Academy of Sciences (45 papers) absent at the last edition,
  • School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (44 papers) published 1 paper at the last edition the same number as at the previous edition,
  • University of Cambridge (43 papers) published 3 papers at the last edition, 3 less than at the previous edition,
  • University of Oxford (42 papers) absent at the last edition.

The overall trend for top affiliations publishing in this journal is outlined below. The chart shows the number of publications at each edition of the journal for top affiliations.

Publication chance based on affiliation

The publication chance index shows the ratio of articles published by the best research institutions in the journal edition to all articles published within that journal. The best research institutions were selected based on the largest number of articles published during all editions of the journal.

The chart below presents the percentage ratio of articles from top institutions (based on their ranking of total papers).Top affiliations were grouped by their rank into the following tiers: top 1-10, top 11-20, top 21-50, and top 51+. Only articles with a recognized affiliation are considered.

During the most recent 2021 edition, 13.08% of publications had an unrecognized affiliation. Out of the publications with recognized affiliations, 15.04% were posted by at least one author from the top 10 institutions publishing in the journal. Another 7.96% included authors affiliated with research institutions from the top 11-20 affiliations. Institutions from the 21-50 range included 22.12% of all publications and 54.87% were from other institutions.

Returning Authors Index

A very common phenomenon observed among researchers publishing scientific articles is the intentional selection of journals they have already attended in the past. In particular, it is worth analyzing the case when the authors participate in the same journal from year to year.

The Returning Authors Index presented below illustrates the ratio of authors who participated in both a given as well as the previous edition of the journal in relation to all participants in a given year.

Returning Institution Index

The graph below shows the Returning Institution Index, illustrating the ratio of institutions that participated in both a given and the previous edition of the conference in relation to all affiliations present in a given year.

The experience to innovation index

Our experience to innovation index was created to show a cross-section of the experience level of authors publishing in a journal. The index includes the authors publishing at the last edition of a journal, grouped by total number of publications throughout their academic career (P) and the total number of citations of these publications ever received (C).

The group intervals were selected empirically to best show the diversity of the authors' experiences, their labels were selected as a convenience, not as judgment. The authors were divided into the following groups:

  • Novice - P < 5 or C < 25 (the number of publications less than 5 or the number of citations less than 25),
  • Competent - P < 10 or C < 100 (the number of publications less than 10 or the number of citations less than 100),
  • Experienced - P < 25 or C < 625 (the number of publications less than 25 or the number of citations less than 625),
  • Master - P < 50 or C < 2500 (the number of publications less than 50 or the number of citations less than 2500),
  • Star - P ≥ 50 and C ≥ 2500 (both the number of publications greater than 50 and the number of citations greater than 2500).

The chart below illustrates experience levels of first authors in cases of publications with multiple authors.

Top Publications

  • COVID-19: what is the disaster?

    Ilan Kelman

    (2020)
    33 Citations
  • The COVID exception.

    Arjun Appadurai

    (2020)
    19 Citations
  • Public space during COVID-19.

    Setha Low;Mark Maguire

    (2020)
    8 Citations
  • Confronting Uncertainties in Pastoral Areas

    (2023)
    7 Citations
  • How to kill a democracy

    Arjun Appadurai

    (2021)
    7 Citations
  • Repealing Ireland's Eighth Amendment: abortion rights and democracy today

    Ela Drążkiewicz;Thomas Strong;Nancy Scheper‐Hughes;Hugh Turpin

    (2020)
    3 Citations
  • Underestimation/complacency: two comments on the language of warfare

    Marilyn Strathern

    (2020)
    2 Citations
  • Terms of engagement

    Marilyn Strathern

    (2021)
    2 Citations
  • Preface

    (2020)
    0 Citations

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Best Scientists Contributing to This Journal