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

LETICIA SOARES; KRISTINA COCKLE; ERNESTO RUELAS INSUNZA; JOSE TOMAS IBARRA; CAROLINA ISABEL MIÑO; SANTIAGO ZULUAGA; ELISA BONACCORSO; JUAN CAMILO RÍOS-ORJUELA; FLAVIA A. MONTAÑO-CENTELLAS; VALENTINA FERRETTI

Ornithological applications

Oxford University Press

Año: 2023 vol. 125 p. 1 - 31

A major barrier to advancing ornithology is the systemic exclusion of professionals fromthe Global South. A recent special feature, Advances in Neotropical Ornithology, and ashortfalls analysis therein, unintentionally followed a long-standing pattern ofhighlighting individuals, knowledge, and views from the Global North, while largelyomitting the perspectives of people based within the Neotropics. Here, we reviewcurrent strengths and opportunities in the practice of Neotropical ornithology. Further,we discuss problems with assessing the state of Neotropical ornithology through anorthern lens, including discovery narratives, incomplete (and biased) understanding ofhistory and advances, and the promotion of agendas that, while currently popular in thenorth, may not fit the needs and realities of Neotropical research. We argue that futureadvances in Neotropical ornithology will critically depend on identifying and addressingthe 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 citationbias), and logistical barriers. Moving forward, we must examine and acknowledge thecolonial roots of our discipline, and explicitly promote anticolonial research, training,and conservation agendas. We invite our colleagues within and beyond the Neotropicsto join us in creating new models of governance that establish research priorities withvigorous participation of ornithologists and other stakeholders within the Neotropicalregion. To include a diversity of perspectives, we must systemically addressdiscrimination and bias rooted in the socioeconomic class system, anti-Blackness, anti-Brownness, anti-Indigeneity, misogyny, homophobia, tokenism, and ableism. Insteadof seeking individual excellence and rewarding top-down leadership, institutions in theNorth and South can promote collective leadership. In adopting these approaches, we,ornithologists, will join a community of researchers across academia building newparadigms that can reconcile our relationships and transform science.