História, Ciências, Saúde – Manguinhos in 2021

Despite all the adversities that stifle political, social, and cultural life in Brazil, História, Ciências, Saúde – Manguinhos has reason to celebrate its activities over the past year. Acknowledging the good things we did, no matter how small they might seem compared to the tragedies we have experienced, is an act of mental health and hope in the continuity, the relevance, and the quality of historical research and studies of our science-related cultural heritage. Just as we did roughly a year ago (Cueto, 2021), we would like to report on our main activities during 2021. This report complements other efforts to record the trajectory of our journal (Benchimol et al., 2007; Cueto, Silva, 2019).

História, Ciências, Saúde – Manguinhos published its four regular issues as well as a special issue, entitled “Unbalanced reciprocities: the history of relationships between animals” (volume 28, supplement), whose guest editors were Regina Horta Duarte, Gabriel Lopes, Natascha Stefania Carvalho De Ostos, and Nelson Aprobato Filho. We also published a noteworthy dossier entitled “The ‘milk question’ in Latin America: experts, markets, and public policies in the twentieth century,” edited by the researchers Sören Brinkmann and José Buschini, in volume 28, issue 4.

In early 2021, we announced new instructions for authors (volume 28, issue 1) that included the adoption of open science guidelines, an important change in our editorial policy. Throughout the year we continued to publish texts in the “Testimonies covid-19” and “Historiographic review” sections by historians from Brazil and abroad. During 2021, 165 submissions were received from Brazil and 120 from other countries, most of them coming from Spain, the United States, Argentina, Chile, and Mexico. We believe that this national diversity reflects our efforts at internationalization, which involve translating texts into English and boosting communication via the social networks.

During the second year of the covid-19 pandemic, the history of science and of health remained at the center of global debates. In 2021, the journal’s Brazilian blog received 389,797 views, and the international blog was viewed 19,830 times.

There were 178 posts on the Brazilian História, Ciências, Saúde – Manguinhos blog, an average of 15 per month or almost four per week. On the international blog there were 142 posts in English and Spanish in 2021, an average of three per week. On our Portuguese-language Facebook page there were 248 posts, an average of 20 per month or nearly five per week. These posts included interviews with authors of the articles published in the journal, reports on the world of academic publishing, as well as news from the Casa de Oswaldo Cruz and Fiocruz.

All these activities were possible thanks to the invaluable cooperation of the journal’s assistant editors, section editors, and editorial team: Mônica Auler, Roberta Cerqueira, Camilo Papi, Mônica Cruz Caminha, Vinícius Renaud, Marciel Mendonça, Miriam Junghans, Marina Lemle, Vivian Mannheimer, and Fernando Vasconcelos. Most of our staff had to work remotely, with all the accompanying challenges. We are very grateful to the authors and the reviewers of all the articles that make this journal noteworthy in Brazil and in Latin America. We also wish to thank Marcos José de Araújo Pinheiro, director of the Casa de Oswaldo Cruz (the unit of Fiocruz where we work) for his significant support of the journal’s activities.

As I write this letter, the world is not only still affected by the ongoing covid-19 pandemic (which is now less deadly), but also reeling in horror at the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Some researchers in social science and the humanities have accused Russia’s authoritarian government of unforgivable atrocities; other intellectuals prefer to stress that similar invasions have occurred in recent years as part of other imperialist objectives. In any case, the war seems to be wiping out hopes that when the pandemic is over there will be more investments in public health, in repairing deadly social inequalities, and in cultural policies. Right now, hope appears to be buried, along with those who lost their lives to violence and to missiles, machine guns, and tanks – weapons that governments may absurdly consider to be even more important now. We hope that history and our articles in 2022 will bring readers feelings of tolerance, peace, and resistance in the face of adversity, and confirm the importance of scientific and historical research.

REFERÊNCIAS

• BENCHIMOL, Jaime L. et al. História, Ciências, Saúde – Manguinhos: um balanço de 12 anos de circulação ininterrupta. História, Ciências, Saúde – Manguinhos, v.14, n.1, p.221-257, 2007.
• CUETO, Marcos. História, Ciências, Saúde – Manguinhos em 2020: um periódico na adversidade. História, Ciências, Saúde – Manguinhos, v.28, n.2, p.343-345, 2021.
• CUETO, Marcos; SILVA, André Felipe Cândido da. História, Ciências, Saúde – Manguinhos: 25+. História, Ciências, Saúde – Manguinhos, v.26, n.2, p.375-378, 2019.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  06 June 2022
• Date of issue
  Apr-Jun 2022