Neotropical ornithology: Reckoning with historical assumptions, removing systemic barriers, and reimagining the future

Abstract

A major barrier to advancing ornithology is the systemic exclusion of professionals from the Global South. A recent special feature, Advances in Neotropical Ornithology, and a shortfalls analysis therein, unintentionally followed a long-standing pattern of highlighting individuals, knowledge, and views from the Global North, while largely omitting the perspectives of people based within the Neotropics. Here, we review current strengths and opportunities in the practice of Neotropical ornithology. Further, we discuss problems with assessing the state of Neotropical ornithology through a northern lens, including discovery narratives, incomplete (and biased) understanding of history and advances, and the promotion of agendas that, while currently popular in the north, may not fit the needs and realities of Neotropical research. We argue that future advances in Neotropical ornithology will critically depend on identifying and addressing the systemic barriers that hold back ornithologists who live and work in the Neotropics: unreliable and limited funding, exclusion from international research leadership, restricted dissemination of knowledge (e.g., through language hegemony and citation bias), and logistical barriers. Moving forward, we must examine and acknowledge the colonial roots of our discipline, and explicitly promote anti-colonial agendas for research, training, and conservation. We invite our colleagues within and beyond the Neotropics to join us in creating new models of governance that establish research priorities with vigorous participation of ornithologists and communities within the Neotropical region. To include a diversity of perspectives, we must systemically address discrimination and bias rooted in the socioeconomic class system, anti-Blackness, anti-Brownness, anti-Indigeneity, misogyny, homophobia, tokenism, and ableism. Instead of seeking individual excellence and rewarding top-down leadership, institutions in the North and South can promote collective leadership. In adopting these approaches, we, ornithologists, will join a community of researchers across academia building new paradigms that can reconcile our relationships and transform science. Spanish and Portuguese translations are available in the Supplementary Material.

Climate change and long-term human behaviour in the Neotropics: an archaeological view from the Global South

“…Furthermore, while case studies from the Global South have often been considered in debates over archaeology and climate change, scholarly production from the Global South on the subject has been largely ignored. Scientific production generated in the region is seldom considered by researchers from the Global North investigating in the Global South, either because it is in a language different from English-which we do not consider a strong justification-or due to more structural factors, such as not considering it relevant enough (see [38,39,99], among others). While we agree with Mizoguchi [100] that there is not a homogeneous theoretical discourse in archaeology at present, this does not mean that the theoretical production from the Global South is well known.…”

Evolution of nest architecture in tyrant flycatchers and allies

“…In Tyrannida alone, the nests for over 100 species have yet to be found or described. This especially highlights the critical importance of detailed field-based studies, rooted in natural history and often carried out on small taxonomic groups in remote regions-particularly in the Neotropics [109], for future work on the evolution of nest design in birds. Finally, our study adds to the growing body of work exploring the myriad influences on nest architecture not just in birds [11,14,26,110] but also in non-avian reptiles [111], amphibians [112], fishes [43,113], mammals [114,115] and insects [116].…”

Equitable Data Governance Models for the Participatory Sciences

“…Without a way to diffuse centralized control, project leaders might make data management decisions that reinforce what is most likely colonial Western hegemonic structures of science. For example, global north participatory science can be extractive of people in the global south, mirroring colonial practices of collections for museums (Soares et al., 2023) and even extractive of people in the global north, such as with specimens from people (e.g., Henrietta Lacks; Skloot, 2010). Though not necessarily as strong a solution as individualized control, project leaders can try to avoid or minimize extractive practices by designing a data governance structure with a broad array of stakeholders who represent salient participant groups.…”