Mapping the intellectual and conceptual structure of research on CoDa in the ‘Social Sciences’ scientific domain. A bibliometric overview

Abstract

This article presents a bibliometric analysis and a mapping of the intellectual and conceptual structure of the research conducted on ‘Compositional Data’ (CoDa) in Social Sciences. Since the publication of John Aitchison's seminal documents on compositional data in 1982 and 1986, the scientific production of papers using compositional data methods in Social Sciences has increased exponentially in several fields. The purpose of this paper focuses on multiple categories of Social Sciences and offers a comprehensive approach through bibliometrics methods, of the application of CoDa since 1988. Using various bibliometric techniques of productivity and graphic mapping, this document determines the evolution that research in compositional data has experienced, the most relevant journals and the research topics that have been addressed in different fields of research, among other issues. The findings reveal that the publication of papers applying compositional data has increased exponentially over the last 30 years, highlighting the contributions that have been made by the fields of ‘geosciences’, ‘geography’ and ‘geology’, ‘health’ and ‘environmental science’ to this development. The Journal of Geochemical Exploration, the Journal of Archaeological Science, Archaeometry, the Journal of Archaeological Science-Reports, the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health are the main journals that have contributed to this development. Among other contributions of this work, we can highlight that it offers the intellectual, social, and conceptual structure of the research over a long period of time, gathering the growing literature of research progress on CoDa in Social Sciences.