BatsA Project
The bat is a quadruped mammal that some cultures around the world classify among birds, transcending categories and boundaries. It disrupts and challenges imaginations. In the vast Austronesian region, stretching from the South China Sea to the Pacific to the east, and westward to Madagascar, bats hold multiple meanings. They are sometimes symbols of luck, consumed for their meat, used for their medicinal properties, incorporated into rituals, and even tamed. As vital pillars of biodiversity, bats play a crucial role in pollination, fertilization, and reforestation in numerous environments; they also eliminate insects. Despite the viruses they harbor, humans maintain various relationships with them. BatsAustronesia explores these issues through ethnographic research enriched by inquiries from biology and ecology, all while prioritizing an anthropological perspective.
The Austronesians are recognized as great navigators in the history of humanity. Austronesia encompasses many ethnic groups whose languages belong to the same large linguistic family. These cultures and the environments in which they are embedded vary considerably. However, it appears that on a global scale, the hominids of this vast region of the world have coevolved with bats, creating interspecific relationships over time that remain largely unknown.
The researchers of the project work both individually and collectively. Each doctoral student conducts their own thesis research on a specific theme related to the project within a particular group. This local context gives rise to various related topics. The researchers work with both Austronesian populations and, at times, older populations linked to other languages. The researchers collaborate within the team from a comparative perspective.
The BatsAustronesia project is based on several research axes. The first focuses on the relationship between local knowledge and scientific knowledge. The research team explores how these different forms of knowledge can differ, intersect, or complement each other. This knowledge contributes to the preservation of environments (in the sense of Augustin Berque), biodiversity, and cultural diversity. The issues are both local and global. The second axis concerns the conditions of coexistence between humans and bats, an axis that emerged following the COVID-19 pandemic, during which bats were blamed. This zoonosis raises a central question: under what conditions can close cohabitation between humans and chiropterans be possible?
These two axes, along with associated sub-themes, are explored through in-depth ethnographies conducted in the vast Austronesian region. The five theses of the project aim to propose sketches of answers to these questions while highlighting local issues related to the specificity of each research field.
It is possible to establish a fundamental link between biodiversity and the health of populations, species, and ecosystems, while considering that microbes, bacteria, and viruses play a key role in the evolution of civilizations and living beings. The environments in which humans and other forms of life interact are dynamic, continuously evolving and transforming. However, humans often have a very static view of these environments.
The first axis of the research questions how to align local and scientific knowledge in order to achieve the preservation of biodiversity and sustainable biosecurity. How can local and scientific knowledge help us live healthily in eco-dynamic environments? What role do imaginaries play in the perception of the dynamics of life? How can contrasting experiences be reconciled, and solutions imagined that are acceptable to highly diverse collectives?
The second axis invites reflection on the necessary conditions for the coexistence of humans and bats. This question can be broadened to include all forms of life implicated in the spread of zoonoses, a theme that emerged with the biosafety paradigm.
Ethnographic research offers tools to account for the complexity of these questions. Moreover, anthropology enables a comparative exploration of the intimacy of human-bat relationships. Several Austronesian or non-Austronesian language communities have lived alongside these animals for millennia; they understand their sensitivities and utilize their skills to predict typhoons, find water sources, and more.
The valuable experiences of these populations help to better understand the relationships humans forge with living beings at a time when the West has invented nature, exploiting it to the maximum or seeking to preserve it at all costs. The project seeks to better understand how humans impact environments: how predation and conservation, for example, work together, how mutualism can be a winning solution, and more.
At the heart of the ecological and health crisis we are experiencing, the project draws on theoretical frameworks from several disciplines (geography, biology, ecology, etc.), while recognizing that ethnography and anthropology play a crucial role in enabling the coexistence of highly diverse human and non-human worlds, as well as extremely varied living environments.
The BatsAustronesia project thus aims to document and understand how certain communities maintain relationships with bats, as well as how they perceive these animals, which have their own worlds (in the sense of von Uexküll). Local and scientific knowledge sheds light on how it is possible to coexist with these species.
In addition to playing a key role in ecosystems, bats are also part of the diet and commerce in these regions. It can be assumed that the practices of these communities have led populations to optimize the use of these animals, while developing preventive measures against the diseases they may transmit. Finally, it is necessary to question the preservation of biodiversity and the understanding of diseases by integrating ecological knowledge at multiple scales (local and global). Anthropological, ecological, biological, and epidemiological expertise are brought into dialogue.
Project Supervision of BatsAustronesia:
The Advisory Board, consisting of Pi-chen Liu (Academia Sinica, Taiwan), Scott Simon (U. Ottawa, Canada), Thierry Hance (Uclouvain, Belgium), Wendy Rose (ICJM, Mauritius), Chiarella Mattern (Institut Pasteur, Madagascar), Marius Gilbert (Ulb, Belgium), Kritzler Tanalgo (Philippines), Florence Brunois (LAS Collège de France), and Lucienne Strivay (ULiège, Belgium). Their expertise contributes valuable knowledge to the project.
The Ethics Committee, composed of Muriel Moens de Hase (Uclouvain, Belgium), Joseph Levy (UQAM, Canada), and Charles Hubert Born (Uclouvain, Belgium) ensures the ethical considerations of ethnographic research in the field.
The administrative team from Uclouvain and INCAL, particularly Hayat el Yagoubi, Anne-Marie Pessleux, and Laetitia Simar.
The research findings of the project are published in journals, films, and open-access books, in accordance with ERC guidelines. An exhibition project is planned for the end of the project.
The project contributes to the series Les Possédés et leurs mondes (in collaboration with Emmanuel Luce, ULaval, Canada) by creating films with anthropologists, ecologists, and biologists who have worked on related topics or in the regions under study.