Team
Frédéric Laugrand
ERC-Interspecific Project's Director
Frédéric Laugrand (IEP Paris 1990; PhD in Anthropology, Canada, 1997) taught for 20 years at Laval University (Quebec, Canada) before moving to Belgium. He is a full professor at UCLouvain and the current director of the Laboratoire d’anthropologie prospective (LAAP-UCLouvain, Belgium). He regularly organizes intergenerational knowledge transmission workshops in Indigenous communities, which lead to Verbatim publications in multiple languages. He has been working with Inuit from the Canadian Arctic since 1993, exploring their hunting practices and relationships with non-humans. Since 2012, he has conducted research in the Philippines with the Ibaloi and Ayta (Luzon), Mangyan Alangan and Iraya (Mindoro), and Blaan (Mindanao). He has also worked with Creole communities from the Indian Ocean, including those from Mauritius (Agalega), and with Chinese communities established outside China. His fieldwork has included missions in Indonesia, Taiwan, Guam, Palau, Samoa, and Tonga.
His research focuses on knowledge transmission and orality, cosmologies, human-animal relations, ritual systems, shamanic traditions and divination, Christianization and missionary activities, nature imaginaries, and perceptions of hazards (volcanic eruptions, zoonoses, etc.). He is interested in regional and intra-regional comparisons within the vast Austronesian language area. Among his recent publications is Des voies de l’ombre. Quand les chauves-souris sèment le trouble (Paris: Muséum national d’histoire naturelle, 2023, with A. Laugrand). With A. Laugrand and L. Simon, he published Sources of Ambivalence, Contagion, and Sympathy. Bats and What They Tell Anthropology (Current Anthropology, vol. 64, no 3, 2023), and with Scott Simon (eds.), Feathered Entanglements. Human-Bird Relations in the Anthropocene (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2024). His publications are available here: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frederic-Laugrand
Lionel Simon
ERC project Coordinator
Anthropologist, postdoctoral researcher, and lecturer at UCLouvain, Lionel Simon is currently coordinating the ERC-Interspecific project. Since 2006, he has conducted research with Wayuu fishing communities (Guajira Peninsula, Colombia), where he wrote his doctoral thesis (defended in 2015). His research highlights the complex interactions between these coastal populations and their environment, both terrestrial and marine. Based on this, he has contributed to theoretical debates on the spatial, bodily, and cognitive (ontological schemata) dimensions of cohabitation with marine and terrestrial environments. He has also emphasized the social, political, and legal aspects of collective life (circulation of goods and alliances).
Building on his thesis, he has continued his exploration of human-environment relations through several postdoctoral research projects. He has expanded his fieldwork, particularly with the Mentawai people of Indonesia (since 2017). With them, he has extensively worked on ritual actions and iconography. These perspectives have allowed him to enrich his understanding of human-environment interactions by approaching them from a variety of themes, starting with ecosystems (desert, forest, coastal, volcanic, insular and peninsular, rural and urban) and diverse technical activities (horticulture, hunting, animal husbandry, fishing).
Nicolas Baran
ERC PhD student
Nicolas is a PhD student in anthropology and focuses on the reasons behind the increase in bat trade and the role of infrastructure (internal roads and digital networks) in supplying traditional markets in North Sulawesi. After completing a master’s thesis titled “Drink Strong,” an ethnographic study on the informal trade and consumption of wine in the context of the economic embargo in post-Soviet Georgia (2012), he worked for several years as a consultant in the international trade of microorganisms for agro-industry in Central Asia. He has gained editorial assistant experience for Social Compass and Journal of Social Sciences of Religions and was part of the Agriconvert ecological conversion project in agriculture in Belgium, supported by FNRS-MIS.
Research Topic: Since January 2024, he has been conducting an ethnographic study on the traditional wildlife market in the province of North Sulawesi, within an increasingly tense international sociopolitical context, investigating how retailers and vendors navigate these challenges.
Research Interests: His research focuses on bats between nature, technology, and politics in the traditional markets of North Sulawesi, examining the role of digital technologies used by key actors in the wild species trade network.
David De Meyer
ERC PhD student
David De Meyer is a PhD student in anthropology at UCLouvain and has been awarded an ERC fellowship. After completing a master’s degree in religious studies (UCL), his methodology in anthropology led David to this discipline, initially working with the Waorani people in Ecuadorian Amazonia. Among them, he focused on issues related to the environment, including biodiversity, onto-cosmological relations, and the resistance of these Indigenous people to the exploitation and pollution of their land. For his doctoral thesis in anthropology, he is studying the close relationship between the villagers and the flying foxes (fruit bats) they consume.
Keywords:
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Totemism
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Zoonosis
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Pteropus
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Immunity
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Ontocosmology
Justine Vanhaelen
ERC PhD student
Justine Vanhaelen is a dynamic and passionate researcher, trained at UCLouvain in Belgium and the University of Montreal in Canada. In 2023, she completed her thesis in Taipei, focusing on migration narratives between the West and Taipei, Taiwan. Currently a PhD candidate since 2024, she is conducting innovative research on the interactions between humans, bats, and the Austronesian environment in Taiwan.
Bats in Taiwan: Humans, Bats, and the Austronesian Environment.
Keywords:
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Humans and non-humans
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Bats
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Austronesia
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Ecology
Margot Coetsier
ERC PhD student
Graduating with a master’s degree in Anthropology from UCLouvain in 2024, I dedicated my thesis to human-insect relationships, or ‘mushi’ (虫), in Japan following my first ethnographic fieldwork. I began my PhD in 2024 for the ERC Interspecific project, focusing on multi-species relationships between bats, humans, and other non-humans in Fiji.
Location: Fiji
Theme: My work for this ERC focuses on contemporary issues that shape the relationships between humans and bats in Fiji, as well as between bats and other animal and plant species, whether or not they are considered invasive. The aim of this research is to develop a multi-species approach to understanding ecosystem construction, biodiversity, and the spread of zoonoses, in dialogue with the practices and knowledge of local populations.
Research Areas:
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Multi-species relationships
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Anthropology of nature
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Ethology
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Environmental crises
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Nature-culture relations
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Ontologies
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Anthropology of the senses
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Anthropology of space
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Studies of fiction
Daria Vinogradova
ERC PhD student
As a PhD student within the ERC team, her research project focuses on the representation of emerging epidemics (plague, Covid) in Madagascar and the relationship between humans and their environment. She explores preparedness for infectious diseases and their management, as well as interspecies relationships in social, medical, and religious contexts.