University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal) Libraries at University of Nebraska-Lincoln January 2020 A Bibliometric Study of Global Feminism Research based on Scopus Database S.B. Patil [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libphilprac Part of the Library and Information Science Commons Patil, S.B., "A Bibliometric Study of Global Feminism Research based on Scopus Database" (2020). Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal). 3746. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libphilprac/3746 A Bibliometric Study of Global Feminism Research based on Scopus Database S.B.Patil Assistant Professor, Department of Library & Information Science, Shivaji University, Kolhapur-416004, Maharashtra, India, E-Mail: [email protected] Abstract The present study analyzed 11681 global publications on feminism published from 2000 to 2017. The Scopus citation database was used to extract the required data. After analysis of the data it is found that the highest contribution in feminism research takes the form of journal articles. It is observed that the publications are steadily growing. The top 15 countries accounted for as much as 83 % global publications share. The United States topped the list with highest share (37.45%) of publications. The highest Relative Citation Impact (RCI) is contributed by London School of Economics and Political Science. The highly preferred journals predominantly belong to United States and United Kingdom. On the basis of study it is noticed that, the European countries, authors, journals, and universities have dominated the feminism research realm during the reported period. The study reported care, feminist theory, masculinity, race, black feminism, freedom, science, nationalism, third wave feminism etc. as the research hotspot in the feminism field. Keywords: Bibliometrics, Feminism, Scopus, VOSviewer Software, Relative Citation Impact 1. Introduction According to International Women’s Development Agency (2019), “feminism is about respecting diverse women’s experiences, identities, knowledge and strengths, and striving to empower all women to realize their full rights.” It comprises a number of social, cultural and political movements, theories and moral philosophies concerned with gender inequalities and equal rights for women. The contemporary feminists consider three “waves” in the history of feminism. The first-wave feminism refers to feminism movement during nineteenth and early twentieth century, which mainly dealt with the Suffrage. The second-wave (1960s-1980s) is 1 related to inequality of laws as well as cultural inequalities. The third-wave feminism (1990s) emerged in response to the perceived failures of the second-wave (“Feminism”, 2019). The Encyclopedia Britannica in its article on feminism mentioned that, fourth wave of feminism had began in 2012,with a focus on sexual harassment, body shaming, and rape culture etc. issues. Many high profile incidents are associated with it. According to United Nations Economic and Social Council (2019), “Globally, 750 million women and girls were married before the age of 18 and at least 200 million women and girls in 30 countries have undergone female genital mutilation (FGM). One in five women and girls, including 19 per cent of women and girls aged 15 to 49, have experienced physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner within the last 12 months. Yet, 49 countries have no laws that specifically protect women from such violence.” Keeping track of such type of worst situations, the United Nation (UN) decided to end all forms discrimination against all women and girls. The inclusion of sustainable Development Goal 5 titled as ‘Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls’ is the reflection of sincere efforts and action taken by the United Nation (UN). The study of feminism is multi-disciplinary in nature. Researchers from various fields such as political science, sociology, history, philosophy, psychology, literature, media studies, law, and communication sciences etc. have contributed in this subject domain. The present study aims to identify and analyze the global trends in feminism related research by applying bibliometric tools. 2. Review of Literature Bhardwaj and Jain (2015) evaluated the research trends in mobile learning for the period of 20 years (1991-2010) and found Taiwan as the most productive country. Ali, Malik and Raza (2018) analyzed global research output on knowledge sharing for 27 years (1990-2016) using Web of Science (WoS) database. The results reveal the upward trend in the annual production of the research publications during the reported period. Jalal (2019) used VOSviewer software to generate co-authorship network and keyword co- occurrences analysis. 2 Ospina-Mateus, Quintana Jimenezz, Lopez-Valdes and Salas-Navarro (2019) analyzed 1813 research articles on motorcycle accident research published from 2000 to 2017. The network visualization map generated through VOSviewer software revealed that the vehicle, model, system, road, speed, safety, and behavior as the frequently occurred key terms. Alagu and Thanuskodi (2019) examined global contribution in digital literacy research for the period of 1992-2011.The study reported that the doubling time (DT) of research publications was increased from 0.43 in 1993 to 2.45 in the year 2011. The study carried out by Waqas et al. (2019) found that the Western countries accounted highest publication share on online hate research during the reported period. The USA found to be most prolific country in this subject domain. A study by Teixeira, da Silva, Fabre, and Batista (2019) elucidated the status of marine shrimp fisheries research reflected in Web of Science (WoS) database. The VOSviewer software was used to generate term co-occurrence and countries co-authorship maps. The model used in the present study investigated Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as the most prominent factor in number of the articles. Alvarez-Garcia, Maldonado-Erazo, Rio-Rama, and Castellano-Alvarez (2019) carried out a bibliometric study on the use of cultural heritage by tourism as an alternative for regional development. The required data was harvested from Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus database. The results of a study revealed China as the most productive country in the scientific production. The objectives of the present study stemmed from the literature review. 3. Objectives of the Study The main objective of this study is to analyze the performance of global feminism research reported during 2000-2017 and indexed in the Scopus database. In particular, the study aims to find: • Document -wise distribution of publications • Growth of the publications and citations on feminism 3 • Highly productive countries • Most prolific institutes • Most preferred journals • Most productive authors • Highly cited publications on feminism • Frequently occurred significant keywords in the titles of publications 4. Methodology A bibliometric method was used for the present study. The study period was set from 2000 to 2017. The study is based on the global feminism research publications indexed by Scopus database. The research data was retrieved from the Scopus citation database (http://www.scopus.com/search/) using search string TITLE-ABS-KEY ("Feminism”) AND PUBYEAR > 1999 AND PUBYEAR < 2018 AND (LIMIT-TO (DOCTYPE,"ar”) OR LIMIT- TO (DOCTYPE,"ch”) OR LIMIT-TO (DOCTYPE,"cp")) on 7 November 2019. The search strategy yielded 11681 records, which was used for further analysis. The records selected for the study include journal articles, book chapters, and conference papers. The VOSviewer software (https://www.vosviewer.com/) was used for keyword analysis. Microsoft Excel was used for data analysis. The dataset obtained was checked and curated manually. 4 5. Results and Discussion 5.1 Forms of Publications Fig. 1: Document - wise Distribution of Publications 10000 9317 9000 8000 7000 6000 5000 4000 3000 2115 No. of Publications No. of 2000 249 1000 0 Article Book Chapter Conference Paper Type of the Documents The highest contribution in feminism research takes the form of journal articles. The Journal articles accounted for 79.76% share among the total output, followed by book chapters (18.11%) and conference papers (2.13%).The present study has excluded the reviews, editorial, letter, erratum, conference reviews and note (Figure 1). 5 5.2 Growth of the Publications Table 1: Growth of the Publications and Citations on Feminism S.N. Year World Research Output TP CG % of TP AGR in % TC % of TC ACPP 1. 2000 369 369 3.16 0 8118 6.96 22 2. 2001 395 764 3.39 7.05 7103 6.09 17.98 3. 2002 275 1039 2.35 -30.38 5583 4.79 20.30 4. 2003 311 1350 2.66 13.09 5040 4.32 16.21 5. 2004 314 1664 2.69 0.96 6675 5.72 21.26 6. 2005 376 2040 3.22 19.75 5636 4.83 14.99 7. 2006 474 2514 4.05 26.06 7502 6.43 15.83 8. 2007 593 3107 5.08 25.11 9402 8.07 15.85 9. 2008 666 3773 5.70 12.31 9569 8.21 14.37 10. 2009 659 4432 5.64 -1.05 9093 7.80 13.80 11. 2010 740 5172 6.33 12.29 7237 6.21 9.78 12. 2011 677 5849 5.80 -8.51 7090 6.09 10.47 13. 2012 788 6637 6.75 16.40 5935 5.09 7.53 14. 2013 907 7544 7.76 15.10 6199 5.31 6.83 15. 2014 881 8425 7.54 -2.87 4832 4.14 5.48 16. 2015 958 9383 8.20 8.74 5264 4.51 5.49 17. 2016 1107 10490 9.48 15.55 3823 3.28 3.47 18. 2017 1191 11681 10.20 7.59 2502 2.15 2.10 Total 11681 -- 100 7.62 116603 100 12.43 TP - TotalTotal Publications; = TC - Total Citations; ACCP - Average Citations Per Paper; CG - Cumulative Growth; AGR - Annual Growth Rate As reflected in the Scopus citation database, the global output in the field of feminism research cumulated to a total of 11681 publications with an average output of 648.94 papers 6 per year during 2000-2017.