Our consortium of French and Chinese social anthropologists will investigate the impact of the Covid-19 crisis on the regulation of wetmarkets in central China. Based on our expertise in the anthropology of human-animal relations in various societies and in the ethnography of the reconstruction of daily life and disrupted habitats after a disaster in central China, we will assess how Chinese authorities will regulate the economy of wetmarkets and how retailers and consumers will react to these measures around the area of Wuhan, which was the epicenter of emergence of this new coronavirus transmitted from bats to animals sold for human consumption. We will document the animal species sold on these wetmarkets, the uses made of their body parts and the economic and symbolic value attached to these animals and their body parts in Chinese traditional medicine. Our aim is to understand how Covid-19 has changed the perception of zoonotic risks in the urban areas where consumers can buy wild animals, taking measures in wetmarkets in southern China after SARS and measures in bushmeat markets in central Africa after Ebola as points of comparison, as well as wild animal markets in South America. In the context of increased zoonotic risks caused by changing relations between urban habitats and wild animals, due to ecological changes but also to an « organic » demand by urban consumers, this investigation will raise lessons not only for Chinese health and agriculture but also for other local and national authorities who have to manage the emergence of new infectious diseases from animal reservoirs.

LifeChange aims at developing an original line of research to track the biological consequences of the societal changes undergone by the Yakut people of Far Eastern Siberia, after the colonization of the region by Russians in the 17th century, and to evaluate how the major lifestyle transition that followed still conditions the health status within the present-day population. The recent history of Yakut people provides a unique natural experiment in which contact between populations showing traditional and modern lifestyles took place in the coldest region in the northern hemisphere. Russians introduced carbohydrate-rich cereals in the region for the first time, which increasingly impacted the traditionally protein-rich, meat-driven Yakutian diet over time. They brought along new germs, such as smallpox and tuberculosis, causing massive epidemiological outbreaks that decimated the immunologically naive native population. The Russian expansion in the region also dramatically impacted the sociocultural sphere, including an increasing settlement of native groups and a gradual conversion to Christianity. The last 5 centuries of the Yakut history thus provides a paradigm in which (1) the biological consequences of transitioning from traditional to modern lifestyle can be measured in situ, and (2) direct information about important human pathogens and the genetic factors underlying their virulence can be collected. By coupling truly complementary state-of-the-art approaches in ancient DNA research, (meta)(epi)genomics, immunogenetics and sociology for the first, we will track the history of changes in the genome, epigenome and oral microbiome of Yakut people from the 16th century onwards. This will allow us to measure the impact of Russian colonization, which resulted in dramatic societal changes and lifestyle shifts. We will also evaluate how social and animal exposure condition patterns of epigenetic variation, oral microbiota composition and zoonotic disease risks in present-day individuals. Our project will provide the first empirical test for important medical hypotheses, such as the hygiene and old-friend hypotheses, which posit that present-day populations are maladapted to modern lifestyle and that recent changes in lifestyle have driven major biological changes, including some of major health relevance. Importantly, our project presents a novel paradigm for the study of the biological consequences of European colonization, integrating archaeological, historical, ethnological, medical and biological proxies within a single, consistent framework.

Describing and understanding factors affecting the distribution and transmission of pathogenic agents in wild animal populations is important for basic and applied reasons, notably in the current context of global change and recurrent emergences of infectious diseases, which can be related to human activities. Various tools can be used to track, understand and respond to the emergence of infectious agents. Here, we propose to integrate biomedical and molecular epidemiology approaches with population ecology and anthropological approaches to address those issues. Building on our experience in these fields and on the unique situation of sub-Antarctic islands (Crozet, Kerguelen and Amsterdam), where dense but threatened populations of colonial marine vertebrates (albatrosses, penguins, seals) breed in highly structured but relatively simple communities that can be affected by infectious diseases, we propose to address critical hypotheses on the processes underlying eco-epidemiological dynamics and their impacts. A first axis of the work will focus on documenting how infectious agents are shared at a hierarchy of spatial scales among vertebrates host populations in the native vertebrate and introduced species communities of southern ocean islands. We will notably explore the potential usefulness of scavanger and predatory species, such as skuas and giant petrels, as epidemiological senitnelles, and their potential roles as spreaders of pathogenic agents. A second axis will focus on the particular situation of Amsterdam Island, where recurrent epizooties of avian cholera are responsible for massive die-offs of nestlings of albatrosses and penguins, and where the test of the use of a vaccine approach is possibly humpered by the negative effects of introducted species like rats. That part of the project will uniquely benefit from the independantly funded plan of eradiction of introduced species from that island, to be implemented in 2022, and a collaboration with the stakeholder in charge of that eradication plan, the National Nature Reserve of the Terres Australes. A third axis will explore how modelling and social science approaches could be used to better apprehend the risks of emergence of infectious disease in such systems and ways to manage them. The project benefits from involing a consoritium of partners and collaborators with a broad range of complementary skills. It will also draw upon the use of samples and access to field set ups provided by a multi-year field research program supported by the French Polar Institute. The results are expected to have broad basic and applied implications.

The aim of the project is the development of an open interactive online platform for sharing and analysing kinship data (genealogies, terminologies and residential data) used in scientific research (particularly in anthropology, history and demography). Combining the functions of an archive of primary sources with those of a toolbox providing advanced software for their analysis, the project forms part of a research perspective aiming to understand the interactions between genealogy, terminology and space in the emergence of kinship structures. The platform is hosted by the TGE (very large environment) Adonis, thus uniting the principles of secure data storage, open access, and scientific quality control, while at the same time allowing for continuous data completion and software improvement by authors and developers. Having as its medium-term objective to bring together a large part of the kinship data used in international scientific research, the platform will constitute an important and innovative research instrument providing kinship studies with both a solid empirical basis and an integrated analytical framework.

For three decades now, the indigenous societies in Amazonia have been playing an increasingly active role on the political spectrum. Their organizations come are involved in national politics, and their leaders offer some of the highest representation of the state, without ever abandoning their primary role in the majority of so-called “environmental” conflicts which have shaken the region. However, their motivations and political projects remain ambiguous, full of complex rhetoric. This project aims to analyze this phenomenon, which goes beyond the regional framework to become an issue at a global level, while trying to highlight the specificities of each country in the region and the way in which they exceed the boundaries of politics. This project also aims to analyze the historical and social logic that these processes stimulate within the indigenous communities of different cultural values. In particular, three main focal points will be addressed: (1) What seems particularly interesting is how the Amazonian societies manage to construct political representation while simultaneously undertaking formal electoral processes (town, province, representation in Congress, etc.), and there are non-governmental activists whose orientations are sometimes radically contrary to those promoted by the Government. (2) The manner in which each Amerindian people is involved in politics varies depending on cultural, historical, and social logic appertaining to each group. Two issues will be addressed: (2.1) The methods of exercising the different political styles emanate from the various forms of kinship and social organization, political legitimacy, and indigenous ritual practices partially understood through anthropology. (2.2) This project also seeks to reveal these styles and historical substrates which explain them, as well as the developments and disturbances produced within these societies as a result of their contemporary political participation. (3) Politicization and the merging of modernity and tradition as expressed in the political field occur in parallel to the recent wave of urbanization of the Amazonian people. More and more indigenous people are migrating to urban centers in the Amazonian provinces, and from there they head to the major conurbations of the region. Frequent round-way trips between the cities and the forest result in the emergence of new institutional forms which must be examined. The three previous points should be addressed using two main research approaches. (a) Issue of conflict: The first involves a study of socio-environmental conflict as a situation for reviewing action and political discourse. The Amazonia is extremely important for the biodiversity of the planet and for reducing global warming. On the other hand, it must now contend with the extraction of oil and mineral resources, as well as hydroelectric dam projects which endanger its ecological wealth and diversity. Moreover, all of these territories are occupied by Native American populations which have become political actors with regard to multilateral policy. (b) Regional studies: The second approach focuses on a comparative study of the regional multi-ethnic collectives. Given the unprecedented development of the Amazonian anthropology over recent decades and the growing number of monographs studies, it is important to encourage comparative research on the various ethnic groups of the societies (Amerindian or otherwise) located in the same Amazonian area.