Project description
Towards a safe coexistence with bats in Austronesia
Fruit bats are integral to ecosystems despite carrying diseases. Certain communities coexist with bats, developing practices to utilise them while mitigating disease outbreaks. This raises key questions: How can we integrate scientific and local knowledge to safeguard biodiversity, promote biosafety, and sustain our relationship with nature? What are the limits and conditions for human interaction with bats and other zoonotic disease carriers? The EU-funded Interspecific project will conduct ethnographic research on how certain Austronesian communities have interacted with bats for centuries. The study seeks to comprehend the dynamics of vulnerability and immunity within these narratives. Interspecific aims to document and understand how specific communities coexist with bats while maintaining safety.
Objective
The proposed research lies at the juncture of the anthropology of nature, the cultures of Austronesia and the study of interspecific relationships. Considering that a fundamental link exists between biodiversity and the health of individuals, populations, species and ecosystems, and that microbes, bacteria and viruses are key to the evolution of civilisations and living beings, we will address two questions: 1) In a world going through a livestock revolution, to what extent can local and scientific knowledge jointly inspire efforts to preserve biodiversity and biosafety, and rebuild sustainable relationships with living beings? 2) To what extent and on what conditions can humans have contact with bats and coexist with them (and other animals incriminated in the spread of zoonoses, either as reservoirs or as intermediate hosts)? Conversely, at what point do these species endanger human communities? We wish to answer those questions through research within several indigenous groups who have lived for millennia in contact with such animals. Specifically, we will conduct ethnographic research at several sites across the large cultural and linguistic region of Austronesia (which coincides with the range of flying foxes, also known as fruit bats) to see how different interspecific communities interact and how narratives of vulnerability and immunity operate. The project aim is to document and understand how certain peoples maintain relationships with bats and see them and their worlds (in the sense used by the biologist von Uexkll), and the extent to which such knowledge helps them live safely with these animals. The general hypothesis is as follows. Knowing that fruit bats are one of the links in the transmission of zoonotic diseases to humans and also a part of the ecosystem used for food and trade, we hypothesise that local practices have led people to maximise use of this resource while developing measures to prevent epidemics.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences biological sciences microbiology virology
- agricultural sciences agriculture, forestry, and fisheries agriculture horticulture fruit growing
- social sciences political sciences political transitions revolutions
- social sciences sociology anthropology
- agricultural sciences animal and dairy science domestic animals animal husbandry
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2022-ADG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
1348 LOUVAIN LA NEUVE
Belgium
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