Days to First Editorial Decision:  13 (2023)
Days to Accept: 135 (2022)
Acceptance rate: 79%

Alternautas is an open-access, peer-reviewed, indexed journal published in the University of Warwick Press. We created Alternautas to provide a platform for analysis, critique, and theory on Latin American development which falls outside the mainstream Anglophone debate. We believe that it is necessary to challenge and expose the boundaries of current mainstream development thinking, which fails to capture the richness and diversity of debates on development from Latin America or the lived reality of people from the region. We, therefore, invite scholars and politically engaged persons to submit theoretically informed analyses, critiques of, and emerging alternatives to mainstream views on development. This includes commentary on current events as they relate to the struggle over development in Latin America. We are happy to invite contributions along these lines, with the broader aim of providing a space for the Alternautas community to grow.

Our focus is the intellectual production stemming from Latin American traditions of thought (dependency theory, Sumak Kawsay, sub-imperialism, neo-extractivism, post-neoliberalism, among others). As this body of work is mainly produced in Spanish or Portuguese, it remains largely inaccessible to Anglophone audiences. Highlighting, connecting, circulating, and reviewing texts and ideas which remain hostage to language barriers are thus the central features of our activity. Revealing or stressing connections and (mutual) influences with other thought traditions and other spaces also falls within the purposes of the journal. The value of Alternautas for its contributors is as a forum for disseminating ideas that do not fit neatly into journals focused on the Anglophone debates between scholars in/from the Global North. We will share the content widely and encourage comments and discussions, providing an outstanding forum for shifting the framing of development debates. 

Alternautas is a bi-annual journal, published once every six months, as well as publishing Special Issues which might supplement the two annual editions. Alternautas will sometimes advertise for contributions to a particular Special Issue to supplement the two bi-annual editions. But the editorial team also encourages autonomous proposals for thematic Special Issues, which should include no fewer than five papers, of which one should be an introduction to the Special Issue. In line with our aims, the primary target readership of Alternautas is the English-speaking audience with a prior interest in the topic, though the content needs to be relevant and interesting to the general academic reader as well.

Alternautas is run by a core team of early-career scholars (see about us), who act as editors and regular contributors. The Managing Editorship is rotated between members of the Editorial Board. To maintain the exposition of the debates within the journal at the highest level, contributions are required to pass a double-blind peer-reviewing process. Submissions that broadly fit the mandate of Alternautas will be sent to at least two peer-reviewers, and a final decision on publication will be made by the editors. Alternautas is a signatory of the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA).