Development of Primatology and Primate Conservation in Vietnam Challenges and Prospects

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Article

Development of Primatology and Primate Conservation

in Vietnam: Challenges and Prospects

Tha.ch Mai Ho `ang

Vietnam National University

WHO IS A VIETNAMESE PRIMATOLOGIST?

Many introductory textbooks for biological or physical

an-thropology include primatology as a branch of biological

anthropology, and in higher education programs in

anthro-pology in many countries, including the United States,

primatology is taught as such In Vietnam, there is no

formal training program in primatology or biological

an-thropology, and many scientists question why primatology

should be taught in an anthropology department, having been

trained instead in a vertebrate zoology or biology

depart-ment To gain a broader understanding among Vietnamese

scholars about the definition of a primatologist in Vietnam

and whether there might be a need for specific training

pro-grams related to primatology, I interviewed and reviewed

the work of several Vietnamese scholars who do research on

primates or were former primate conservation workshop

trainees

Nguy˜ˆen Xuˆan ¯D˘a.ng (e-mail, July 3, 2015), a senior

mammal researcher working at the Department of Zoology

at the Institute of Ecology and Biological Resources (IEBR)

who considers himself a Vietnamese primatologist, defines

primatology “simply as science of biology, ecology and

conservation of primates.” According to Nguy˜ˆen Xuˆan ¯D˘a.ng,

whoever studies primates should be considered a

primatolo-gist In particular, he stated that Vietnamese primatologists

are researchers who publish about the biology, ecology, or

conservation of primates in both national and international

journals His view favors research output as the primary

measure in defining a primatologist in Vietnam rather than

formal or informal education in primatology

Indeed, most primatologists in Vietnam lack formal

training in primatology, and primate research combines

diverse methods beyond those with a solely primate focus,

such as comprehensive biodiversity surveys, applied

biolog-ical research, environmental impact assessments, ecologbiolog-ical

planning for the establishment of a protected area, and so

on Vietnamese primatologists have formal training in

mam-malogy or zoology, ecology, archaeology, or environmental

science This phenomenon is not necessarily unique to

Vietnam and may relate to contemporary discussions in

AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Vol 118, No 1, pp 130–158, ISSN 0002-7294, online ISSN 1548-1433  C 2016 by the American Anthropological Association All rights reserved DOI: 10.1111/aman.12515

the international literature about the multidisciplinaryparentage of primatology (Riley 2013)

Ho`ang Minh ¯D´uc, a senior Vietnamese primatologist,reviewed the history of primatology in Vietnam since theearly 20th century in his keynote presentation “Primatologyand the Conservation of Non-Human Primates in Vietnam”

at the International Primatological Congress in Hanoi,Vietnam, in August 2014 In his presentation, he defined

primatologists as those who are “doing primatology,” meaning

doing research on or surveys of primate populations His

terminology ignored the constitution of the term primatology

as a school or area of study (“-ology”), instead considering

“doing primatology” as an action—the action of doing

research on primates This use of primatology reflects and

shapes how Vietnamese scholars understand the concept inthe context of Vietnam, and it may also open a forum ofdebate about “doing primatology” versus “primatology” ver-sus primate research that is beyond the scope of this article.The perspectives of many mid-career and seniorVietnamese scholars I interviewed also follow this way ofthinking They note that a primatologist in Vietnam must

be someone undertaking primate studies for at least five toten years with authentic scholarly publications Someonewho joined a primatology training program in the past and

is no longer doing primate research is not a primatologist

To illustrate their point of view, they gave some specificexamples of “real” Vietnamese primatologists (includingHo`ang Minh ¯D´uc, Nguy˜ˆen Ma.nh H`a, ¯D`ˆong Thanh Hai, H`aTh˘ang Long, Lˆe Kh´˘ac Quy´ˆet, and V˘an Ngo.c Thi.nh, amongothers) In the opinion of one such primatologist, Ho`angMinh ¯D´uc, someone who used to be involved in research onprimates but is no longer involved, would not be considered

a primatologist (unpublished interview, July 20, 2015).The clearest metrics that emerged when Vietnameseprimatologists defined themselves were ongoing researchrelated to primate populations and scholarly publications onprimate research Although I agree that scholarly production

is important, I argue that quality should outweigh quantity,and quality may be the more pressing issue at the moment

as there is a lack of strong training in Vietnam in thetheoretical foundations and methodological approachesrelated to primatology and conservation biology It may beunnecessary to recognize someone as a “real” primatologist

or not, but the importance of more formal training

opportunities related to primatology and conservation

biology in a primate habitat country like Vietnam cannot

be understated Practitioners or managers cannot conserve

primates without rigorous scientific input and robust

con-textualization to fill the numerous knowledge gaps that exist

about Vietnam’s remaining, and globally important, primate

populations

A SHORT HISTORY OF PRIMATE RESEARCH

IN VIETNAM

Ho`ang Minh ¯D´uc 2014 distinguished three stages of primate

research in Vietnam: (1) the initial period, prior to 1954;

(2) 1954–1986; and (3) 1986 to the present The separation

of the stages matches with the history of the country, which

experienced two wars against France and the United States

during the second stage, followed by an embargo period

The third stage begins with the start of the new open door

“¯Dˆoi m´oi” policy in Vietnam in 1986

In the initial period (before 1954), research on the

pri-mates of Vietnam was dominated by morphologically based

taxonomic descriptions from Western scientists based on

colonial collections in Western institutions Those

speci-mens were preserved in museums in London, Paris, and

Chicago Some remarkable works in this period belong to

Auguste Pavie (1904; list of 7 primate species in Vietnam),

Ren´e Bourret (1942; list of 9 species of primates), and

Winfred Hudson Osgood (1932; list of 17 primate taxa in

Vietnam)

The period of 1954–1986 marks the first generation of

Vietnamese primatologists Most work continued to focus

on morphologically based taxonomic descriptions of new

species (¯D`ao V˘an Ti´ˆen 1960) and primate fauna (¯D`ao V˘an

Ti´ˆen 1985; Lˆe Hi`ˆen H`ao 1973; Van Peenan et al 1969),

in particular gibbons (¯D`ao V˘an Ti´ˆen 1983) The cumulative

research effort recorded 21 primate taxa (Eudey 1987) A

particularly important contribution to primate research in

this period stems from the late Professor ¯D`ao V˘an Ti´ˆen,

the Vietnamese founder of primate and mammal research at

the Department of Vertebrate Zoology, Hanoi University

of Science, Vietnam National University ¯D`ao V˘an Ti´ˆen

collaborated with Professor Colin Groves of the Australian

National University to study the morphology, taxonomy,

and biogeography of Vietnam’s primates, mammals, and

other vertebrates (e.g., the adaptive radiation of northern

limestone langurs and the systematics of gibbons and lorises;

see ¯D`ao V˘an Ti´ˆen 1960, 1983, 1985, 1989) Many primates

and other mammals were collected as specimens during this

period to contribute to national Vietnamese collections at

the Hanoi Zoological Museum, Hanoi University of Science,

and at IEBR

None of the research conducted during two first periods

focused on or mentioned the issue of primate conservation

By contrast, primates and other wildlife were considered

natural resources for economic development (Lˆe Hi`ˆen H`ao

1973) Primates and other wildlife were hunted for wild

meat and for use as subjects in medical research Indeed,the mission of the Institute of Ecological and BiologicalResources (IEBR), established in the 1960s, and the ForestInstitute of Planning and Inventory (FIPI) was to survey thestatus of natural resources to advance Vietnam’s economicdevelopment

Also, it is important to note that, during the first twoperiods, primates were not typically separated out as a targetgroup for surveys by Vietnamese biologists Rather, primateswere included in overall biodiversity surveys of fauna ormammals Thus, there were very few specialized studies

on primates in Vietnam during the first two periods exceptthose mentioned above by ¯D`ao V˘an Ti´ˆen in collaborationwith Colin Groves

Ho`ang Minh ¯D´uc’s “contemporary period” of primateresearch in Vietnam (1987 to the present) is marked by theopen-door policy in 1986 and the lifting of the embargo

by the U.S government in the 1990s More Westernscientists and international nongovernmental organizations(NGOs) were able to come to Vietnam to conduct fieldsurveys for wildlife and primates and introduce conservationideas, opening new cooperative spaces for Vietnamesebiologists and forestry engineers Many new field surveys

of primate conservation status, distributions, and speciescompositions were conducted during this time Academicexpertise and training were more concentrated in NorthernVietnam at this time, so northern institutions and organiza-tions dominated these surveys As new northern institutionsand collaborations were established, Vietnamese expertise

on primate research expanded from Hanoi University of ence (H`a ¯D`ınh ¯D´uc, Lˆe V˜u Khˆoi, V˜u Ngo.c Th`anh, and theirfellows) out to the Institute of Ecological and BiologicalResources (IEBR) (Pha.m Tro.ng Anh, Lˆe Xuˆan Canh,Nguy˜ˆen Xuˆan ¯D˘a.ng, and their fellows), Vietnam ForestryUniversity (VFU) (Pha.m Nhˆa.t, ¯D˜ˆo Quang Huy, andD`ˆong Thanh Hai), the Center for Natural Resources andEnvironmental Studies (CRES) (Nguy˜ˆen Ma.nh H`a), theForest Institute of Planning and Inventory (FIPI) (¯D˜ˆo Tu´oc),and Fauna and Flora International (FFI) (Lˆe Kh´˘ac Quy´ˆet).The World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF) was thefirst conservation NGO to settle in Vietnam in 1995 Manysurveys for the conservation status and distribution of pri-mates were initiated by this organization in the 1990s Also,from the early 2000s to today, Fauna and Flora International(FFI) has led a long-running primate conservation programthat continues to focus on surveys and monitoring of the sta-tus and distribution of primates in Vietnam Several notableand successful species-based primate projects were initi-ated by these international NGOs and others, including, for

Sci-example, one for Tonkin snub-nosed monkeys (Rhinopithecus

avunculus) in Ha Giang Province in early 2004 and for Cat Ba

langurs (Trachypithecus poliocephalus) on Cat Ba Island in 2001.

Most of the primate-related work conducted by namese primatologists before 2003 focused narrowly onprimate rescue or surveys of presence or absence rather thanhypothesis-driven approaches Exceptions are the work of

Viet-the second generation of Vietnamese primatologists such as

Lˆe Xuˆan Canh, Nguy˜ˆen Xuˆan ¯D˘a.ng (IEBR), and Pha.m Nhˆa.t

(VFU), who were trained in vertebrate zoology in Russia

and Vietnam Again, because of their training in vertebrate

zoology or ecology, most primate researchers of this

genera-tion focused on quesgenera-tions of ecosystem structure (following

the ecology school of Eugene Pleasants Odum), and few

projects were designed specifically for primates Rather,

primates were included in broader projects An exception

is the collaboration between Lˆe Xuˆan Canh and Ramesh

“Zimbo” Boonratana in 1991–1992, which focused on the

feeding ecology and social structure of groups of Tonkin

snub-nosed monkeys (Rhinopithecus avunculus) in Na Hang

Nature Reserve, Tuyen Quang Province (Boonratana and

Lˆe Xuˆan Canh 1998a, 1998b)

An influx of primatological research and ideas came

to Vietnam from world primatologists, most of them

from Western countries, in the early 2000s This influx of

knowledge and related training programs and workshops in

Vietnam initiated more in-depth, hypothesis-driven research

on behavioral ecology and taxonomy of Vietnam primates

Indeed, I would expand on Ho`ang Minh ¯D´uc’s 2014 stages to

include a fourth stage of primate research in Vietnam, post

2003, which represents a new phase in the contemporary

state of primate research in Vietnam and is characterized

by an increase in the number of Vietnamese and other

primatologists who focus specifically on hypothesis-driven

primate research in Vietnam The greatest contribution

during this period derives from Professor Herbert H

Covert at the Department of Anthropology, University

of Colorado at Boulder After an earlier research focus

on primate paleontology in the 1990s in Vietnam, in the

early 2000s Covert shifted to work on living primates in

Southeast Asia, specifically in Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, and

Cambodia) Covert’s presentation in 2003 on primate

tax-onomy and conservation at Vietnam National University’s

Hanoi University of Science helped to trigger the further

development of primate research in Vietnam through its

impact on a number of young Vietnamese scientists; in

fact, it triggered my own career shift into primatology and

biological anthropology from vertebrate zoology

Weak capacity and a lack of information exchange

were identified as major challenges for the development of

primate conservation and primate research in Vietnam, and

some training courses on primate conservation and

prima-tology were successfully developed and taught in Hanoi in

this recent period (2006 and 2007) and in Ho Chi Minh City

(late 2010s) through the efforts of Professor Covert,

Con-servation International (CI), and his Vietnamese colleagues

Nowadays, we know more about behavioral ecology,

locomotion, and vocalizations of many primates in Vietnam,

especially colobine monkeys (e.g., Tonkin snub-nosed

monkey) (Lˆe Kh´˘ac Quy´ˆet 2006, 2014), Delacour’s langur

(Workman 2010), red-shanked douc (Ulibarri 2013), and

black-shanked douc (Ho`ang Minh ¯D´uc 2007; O’Brien

2014) In general, higher-profile primate species in

Viet-nam, namely the gibbons, critically endangered colobines,and the Tonkin snub-nosed monkey, have received the mostresearch, conservation attention, and especially funderinterest Also during this period, a new species of gibbon

was described in Vietnam (Nomascus annamensis) (V˘an Ngo.c

Thi.nh et al 2010) By the year 2015, 26 primate taxa havebeen classified and recognized by international primatol-ogists in Vietnam (Blair et al 2011; Roos et al 2014).However, it is important to note that most of the emergingVietnamese primatologists in this contemporary periodreceived their formal graduate training in primatology orbiological anthropology abroad in Europe, Australia, or theUnited States—not in Vietnam

PRIMATE CONSERVATION IN VIETNAM: A DRIVING FORCE FOR ENGAGED PRIMATOLOGY?

For more than ten years, Vietnam has been well known as aglobally important country for primate conservation (Nadlerand Streicher 2004; Nguy˜ˆen 2004) Vietnam has the highestnumber of overall primate taxa and endemic primate taxa inMainland Southeast Asia and the highest number of globallythreatened primate taxa in the region (IUCN 2015) Vietnam

is also home to the second-highest number of species on theList of the 25 Top Most Endangered Primates in the World(Schwitzer et al 2015) How does the pressure to conservethese species influence primate research in Vietnam?Following the perspective of Russell Mittermeier 1978

in the Global Strategy for Primate Conservation—“to ensurethe survival of endangered and vulnerable species whereverthey occur”—five critically endangered primate taxa in Viet-nam became the focus of many sponsors as flagship species

in primate conservation Sponsors’ attraction to thesespecies was inspired not by field research but by their work

at the first primate rescue center in Vietnam, located in CucPhuong National Park Establishment of the rescue center

in 1993 by Tilo Nadler, representative of the FrankfurtZoology Society, Germany, represented one of the firstmajor acts of primate conservation in Vietnam, and thecenter remains a key force for primate conservation in Viet-nam today Named the Endangered Primate Rescue Center(EPRC), the rescue center followed the conservation model

of communist countries like Vietnam and China of the early1960s In 2005, a reintroduction program for the Hatinh

langur (Trachypithecus hatinhensis) and red-shanked douc gur (Pygathrix nemaeus), funded by the Frankfurt Zoological

lan-Society and the Cologne Zoo, was launched in the PhongNha–Ke Bang National Park in central Vietnam with a semi-wild enclosure for reintroduction Two groups of Hatinhlangurs were translocated in 2007, and they were released

in 2012 (Nadler 2007, 2013) However, the function of thecenter goes beyond rehabilitation and release, as release isnot often possible and capacity is limited The function ofthe center thus also includes conservation education, captivebreeding, and scientific research on the primates of Vietnam(Nadler 2007, 2012, 2013, 2015) In addition, the EPRCplays an important role in attracting the attention of the

media and of Vietnamese authorities to raise awareness

about primate conservation in Vietnam (Nadler 2013,

2015)

To further the movement of saving endangered primates

in Vietnam, a second endangered primate rescue center was

established in 2008 in Cat Tien National Park by Jim Cronin,

the founder of Monkey World–Ape Rescue Centre, United

Kingdom This center also works to rescue, rehabilitate, and

reintroduce endangered primates, especially pygmy lorises

(Nycticebus pygmaeus) and gibbons (Nomascus gabriellae), in

Southern Vietnam Like EPRC in the north, the capacity

and management of this center remain largely in the hands

of foreign practitioners, although there are plans to hand

management over to Vietnamese practitioners in the future

Another two animal rescue centers in southern Vietnam

are led by Wildlife At Risk (WAR) and are managed by

Vietnamese experts These centers, established in 2006,

aim to rescue and rehabilitate a wide variety of animals,

including primates Like the other rescue centers, the WAR

centers also maintain functions of conservation education

and species identification training to sustain the operation of

the center (B`ui H˜uu Ma.nh, unpublished interview, July 28,

2015)

Many research projects on primate behavior, ecology,

and biology have been conducted at rescue centers in

Viet-nam, mostly by foreign scholars and students (Nadler 2007,

2012, 2013, 2015) Much of this work has been published

in the Vietnamese Journal of Primatology, which was founded in

2007 at EPRC, and in the proceedings of symposia on

pri-mate conservation held once every two years, also at EPRC

This important research conducted at rescue centers has

informed international primatologists and practitioners

about the diversity and conservation status of Vietnam’s

primate fauna

Here I highlight the importance of rescue centers as

key nodes for primate conservation activities in Vietnam

because doing so is key to understanding the placement of

primate conservation in the broader context of biodiversity

conservation in Vietnam Vietnamese biologists and

ecologists prefer not to separate out any special groups of

organisms from national conservation projects They prefer

landscape-level projects that focus on broad biodiversity

conservation rather than species-based approaches that

target threatened taxa Indeed, few biological or ecological

research projects funded by the Vietnamese government

over the last four decades focus on long-term, species-based

conservation Most funded projects are short term and target

evaluations and inventories of wildlife as natural–biological

resources of a given area rather than the collection of

detailed ecological or genetic information of targeted species

groups

Furthermore, as the global conservation community

moves from protection-based to community-based

app-roaches, the capacity gap widens even further for

Viet-namese primatologists and conservation practitioners, who

are not well trained in the anthropology of conservation In

2010, the government of Vietnam issued Decree number

117 Although a discussion about legal frameworks forconservation in Vietnam is beyond the scope of this article,Decree number 117 reflects a new mechanism to manageprotected areas that is more biodiversity oriented and alsomore community oriented than the former strict protection

of timber Although this decree opens the door to thepotential to address important issues linked to primateconservation such as social justice and equity (Riley 2013),

as discussed above, most Vietnamese primatologists andpractitioners are trained as ecologists, foresters, zoologists,

or biologists and do not have backgrounds in anthropology,social science, or humanities that might aid them in thispursuit

The trend toward community-based conservation alsorelates to the funding policies of international sponsorswho fund primate conservation In terms of internationalsponsors’ interests, primate conservation projects generallyfall into two lines of approach in Vietnam: (1) flagship orendangered species conservation projects and (2) landscape-

or ecosystem-focused conservation projects Flagshipspecies conservation projects in Vietnam are usually smallbudget while landscape projects are larger budget andlarger scale Therefore, big conservation organizations such

as WWF in Vietnam rarely focus on small-scale speciesconservation projects and instead conduct sustainabledevelopment projects with discourse toward global issuessuch as climate change, carbon markets, communitydevelopment, and so on

FFI and EPRC do comparatively more species-basedprojects at smaller scales, such as in situ conservation

of the Delacour’s langur (Trachypithecus delacouri) in Ninh Binh Province, Tonkin snub-nosed monkey (Rhinopithecus

avunculus) in Ha Giang Province, and Cao Vit or

east-ern black-crested gibbon (Nomascus nasutus) in Cao Bang

Province Their success has fostered the integration andleadership of Vietnamese field primatologists (e.g., Lˆe Kh´˘acQuy´ˆet) combining participatory conservation with localauthorities and indigenous people through mutually ben-eficial partnerships

This recent work is part of a process of empowerment

of Vietnamese primatologists More and more Vietnameseprimatologists have been starting their own small NGOs,raising funds, and managing primate conservation projects,such as Dr H`a Th˘ang Long and V˜u Ngo.c Th`anh’s conserva-

tion of grey-shanked douc (Pygathrix cinerea) and red-shanked douc (Pygathrix nemaeus) in Central Vietnam However, the

challenge for Vietnamese primatologists remains how topractice primatology in the broader funding and academiclandscape of Vietnam while earning a living Continued fund-ing from species-focused sponsors is difficult to sustain, and

as discussed throughout this article, dominant institutionalframeworks in Vietnam preclude separation of primate (orany species-based) conservation from broader biodiversityconservation or conservation-related funding at the nationallevel Again, I ask: Because many Vietnamese primatologists

must work in and affiliate with this broader field to maintain

their careers, what does it mean to be a primatologist in

Vietnam?

In addition to the above-mentioned challenges, Vietnam

lacks a primate action plan to guide long-term conservation

The Society of Vietnamese Primatologists was established as a

branch of the Society of Vietnamese Zoologists in the 1990s

to assess primate status and distribution for the Vietnam

Red Data Book of threatened species In 1998, the society

presented a proposal, which reviewed the distribution and

conservation status of 25 taxa of primates in Vietnam, to

create a primate action plan for the country (Pha.m Nhˆa.t

et al 1998) This action plan has never been implemented

due to numerous reasons that are beyond the scope of this

article, and the society is no longer active

Despite a loose link between the Society of Vietnamese

Primatologists and the International Primatological

So-ciety (IPS), very few Vietnamese primatologists became

members of IPS, and few attend the biennial IPS Congresses

However, after the IPS Congress in 2014, which was held

in Hanoi, there was momentum for a reinvigoration of

the Society of Vietnamese Primatologists or a National

Primate Specialist Group to develop an updated National

Primate Action Plan and provide scientific consultancy for

primate conservation projects nationwide Discussions are

ongoing Without a strong primate action plan, political

will for conservation may be hindered and fundraising will

continue to be difficult, which will affect both primate

conservation and primatologists themselves The fates of

Vietnam’s primates and its primatologists are inextricably

linked

THE FUTURE OF PRIMATOLOGY IN VIETNAM

I argue here that primatology in Vietnam has several key

characteristics that shape its current and future development

trajectories:

1 Primate research in Vietnam is driven by the need

for primate conservation At the same time, primate

conservation in Vietnam is founded on many

im-ported models for what conservation is, both from

other communist countries and more recently from

Western scholars and NGOs This in part has led to

comparatively more engagement of foreign scholars

than Vietnamese scholars in primate conservation

in Vietnam What would a Vietnamese-generated

model for primate conservation look like, and how

might it incorporate indigenous knowledge better

than these imported models? The challenges

inher-ent in exploring these questions are compounded

by Vietnamese institutional funding frameworks

(both academic and national) that do not recognize

primate-specific focuses

2 Greater engagement of foreign scholars in primate

conservation has led to a larger role for foreign

scholars in shaping the study of and training in

primatology in Vietnam, with comparatively lessengagement of local scholars This has led, in thelong term, to a lack of formal or sustained trainingopportunities in primatology, especially opportu-nities that feature a leading role for Vietnamesescholars

3 Most Vietnamese primate researchers are trained

in biology, zoology, ecology, or forestry They lacktraining in the anthropology of conservation andcross-disciplinary skills, which limits their ability

to practice conservation or apply for new disciplinary funding mechanisms

cross-Overall, these characteristics indicate that we need atleast some opportunities for formal training in primatology

at Vietnamese academic institutions in the long run and alsomultidisciplinary training opportunities

A program (e.g., a master’s program in primate servation) could train students in the fundamentals ofprimatology and conservation biology and provide training

con-in the cross-disciplcon-inary skills needed to pursue professionalwork in primate research and conservation in Vietnam Thechallenge in establishing such a program is the present con-text of Vietnam’s academic institutions The Ministry of Ed-ucation will open a new program only after demonstration

of need and would require at least three Vietnamese matologists holding doctorates at the proposed institution.There is no institution in Vietnam with so many primatol-ogists in one place To resolve the problem, some seniorVietnamese primatologists propose a simple model with acourse on primate conservation at both undergraduate andgraduate levels rather than a full program This suggestionrecognizes that it is important for Vietnamese primatologists

pri-to have broader training pri-to be able pri-to earn a living working

on biodiversity conservation issues

Also, such a program might still lack multidisciplinarytraining opportunities for students because of the broadercontext of academic institutions in Vietnam For example,the subfields of biological anthropology and environmentalanthropology in Vietnam are brand new, in part becausethey represent multidisciplinary fields of research I taughtthe first-ever courses in environmental anthropology andbiological anthropology in 2015 and 2013 (respectively) inthe Department of Anthropology at Hanoi University of So-cial Sciences and Humanities These courses took place aftermany years preparing for a move to this department from

my former department, the Department of Vertebrate ology at Hanoi University of Sciences Before 1994, thesetwo universities belonged to the same central university,the School of Arts and Sciences But today, classes and stu-dents are not shared between these two universities despitetheir location on the same campus Links between naturaland social science schools and other research institutionsare weak in Vietnam, such that cross-disciplinary cooper-ation in research and training seems an all-but-impossiblemission

Zo-The issue of cross- or multidisciplinary training also

relates to why Vietnam should but does not yet follow

the shifting trend in conservation from conservation

biol-ogy toward a broader view of biodiversity conservation,

or conservation anthropology, that requires a

multidisci-plinary panel of approaches, skills, and paradigms Vietnam

cannot easily follow this trend because of inefficient

capac-ity and institutional boundaries, which is a shame because

Vietnam is an ideal research landscape to explore emerging

multidisciplinary topics in primatology such as

ethnoprima-tology and human primate interaction (Fuentes 2002, 2012;

Riley 2013; Workman 2004), ethical issues in vaccination

and laboratory primates, wildlife trade, genetics of primate

conservation, and so on

In particular, the development of ethnoprimatology

in Vietnam might be very important The 54 different

ethnic groups in Vietnam have diverse cultural values and

connections to their nonhuman primate relatives, and

Vietnam would be a ripe landscape for both theoretical and

engaged research on ethnoprimatological questions For the

most part, these questions are left unexplored in Vietnam,

with the exception of some ongoing niche overlap research

by Western scientists

Another option to support continued development of

primatology and primate conservation in Vietnam would

be to further harness the power of professional society

net-works such as the International Primatological Society (IPS)

For example, IPS could help support the reestablishment

of the Society of Vietnamese Primatologists or a Vietnam

Primate Specialist Group toward the development of an

updated action plan In relation to this, they could help

support a series of Vietnamese-organized academic

train-ing programs in primatology, capitaliztrain-ing on international

expertise but designed and led by Vietnamese researchers

to empower “habitat country” (Oates 2013:243) scholars

and recruit more IPS members In addition, IPS could

con-sider more sustainable funding beyond the short-term grants

available for “habitat-country nationals,” as has already been

suggested by John Oates (2013:243) IPS has already taken

a step in this direction with the new Sabin Prize for

Excel-lence in Primate Conservation, which was awarded to Lˆe

Kh´˘ac Quy´ˆet of Vietnam in 2015 for his work on the

conser-vation of Tonkin snub-nosed monkeys in Ha Giang Province

Other anthropological societies such as the American

Anthropological Association might also seek to support

greater four-field training opportunities in Vietnam

Primate rescue centers in Vietnam should continue to

serve their key role in primate conservation, due to their

convening power and history of important actions Perhaps

this ongoing work could include incorporation into a

cur-riculum of academic training as an outdoor classroom for

Vietnamese fellows

However we move forward, the need for more formal

training opportunities related to primatology and

conser-vation biology in a primate habitat country like Vietnam is

clear Although primate conservation enthusiasts may

pre-fer immediate actions rather than taking the time for formalacademic training that includes theory, I question whether

we can conserve primates without rigorous knowledge toinform our actions

Even as I argue for the importance of formal training

in primatology, I end with a series of important queries forVietnamese primatologists and the world anthropology com-munity: What is primatology in Vietnam without the needfor primate conservation? In other words, in the complexinstitutional landscape of my home country, is primatologyrelevant for Vietnam without engagement, or even with it?When we think about the future of primatology in Vietnamand the development of formal training opportunities, wemust also recognize what Vietnamese students can and can-not do with the skills they learn as they pursue diverse careertrajectories Is it responsible to train more Vietnamese pri-matologists without also providing more sustainable fundingopportunities for careers in primatology or primate conser-vation for Vietnamese practitioners?

NOTES

Acknowledgments. I am grateful to acknowledge Virginia Dominguez for inviting me to write this article I am in debt to Mary E Blair, Mayumi Shimose, and Emily Metzner for edits to my English Thanks also to the many Vietnamese scholars who responded

to my questions about the development of primatology in Vietnam.

REFERENCES CITED

Blair, Mary E., Eleanor J Sterling, and Martha M Hurley

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Comment

Primatology in Vietnam and Other Habitat Countries: An Applied Perspective from India

Kashmira Kakati

Wildlife Biologist, India

Tha.ch Mai Ho`ang provides a comprehensive overview of

primate studies in Vietnam and offers suggestions on how

primatology in Vietnam may be improved His initial

delib-erations on who can be defined as a primatologist do not seem

to me as important as the issues he raises about the quality and

relevance of primate research and conservation in Vietnam

He cites weak capacity, lack of information exchange,

fund-ing problems, the government’s and international NGOs’

focus on landscape-level versus species-level conservation,

and the lack of training of primatologists in the social sciences

or anthropology He also points out that imported models

of conservation and a preponderance of foreign scholars

have shaped primatology in Vietnam at the cost of inclusion

of Vietnamese scholars and indigenous knowledge Many

of the issues in Vietnam are common to other South and

Southeast Asian countries I discuss some of Tha.ch’s points

in light of my experience working in India, where I have

done both species-focused research on primate ecology and

wider landscape-level wildlife studies, addressing ecological

hypotheses as well as hoping that my findings would be used

toward conservation of species and habitats

Tha.ch laments that “dominant institutional frameworks

in Vietnam preclude separation of primate (or any

species-based) conservation from broader biodiversity conservation

or conservation-related funding at the national level.” I

ques-tion whether primate conservaques-tion should be separated from

biodiversity conservation at all It is true that big donors tend

toward landscape-level rather than species-level

conserva-tion, but many landscapes are selected for conservation due

to the presence of wide-ranging and charismatic species such

as elephant, rhino, or tiger In Vietnam, it was the discovery

of a small population of the Javan rhino that influenced the

creation of the Cat Tien National Park in 1998 and

there-after drew government and international funding for thesite Despite this, the Javan rhino went locally extinct there

It is often difficult to use primate species alone to garner thatlevel of attention, and therefore funding, although it has beenachieved for certain great ape populations in Africa As Tha.chnotes, in fact, there is an attributed hierarchy among the pri-mates themselves in terms of their appeal, with “gibbons,critically endangered colobines, and the Tonkin snub-nosedmonkey” in Vietnam receiving the lion’s share of attention.Given the realities, landscape focus is a good strategy in con-servation and does not have to be exclusive of species-focusstudies In fact, detailed and long-term studies on popu-lations and ecology of species can, and should, effectivelyinform their conservation at the landscape level The crit-ically endangered Hainan gibbon in China, just across theGulf of Tonkin from Vietnam, serves as a cautionary tale not

to put off species studies and monitoring until it is too late.Tha.ch acknowledges the role of Vietnam’s rescue cen-ters in primate conservation, especially in achieving the goals

of scientific research, captive breeding, and awareness Fromwhat I understand, however, it seems that primate rehabil-itation into the wild, which should be a primary goal, isperhaps not as successful due to a variety of reasons This

is a problem that might be addressed by taking a widerview, investing in protection, and involving communities

in order to repopulate forests with primates that have beendecimated by hunting The wild populations of Vietnam’s 26primate taxa are threatened by hunting and habitat loss Theyneed research attention On the one hand, hypothesis-drivenresearch on Vietnam’s primates does not have to precludeconservation On the other hand, wild primate research doesnot always have to include a conservation goal at the outset.Tha.ch dwells at length on training and capacity lacunaefor Vietnamese primatologists While acknowledging thecontributions of foreigners and foreign collaborations toprimatology in Vietnam, he also suggests that these might be

preventing Vietnamese scholars from having leading roles.

From the perspective of my experience in India, within the

last two to three decades, high-quality institutions—namely,

universities, government institutes, and conservation

organizations—have produced a capable cadre of in-country

wildlife biologists, among them primatologists Several

scholars have benefited, as no doubt Vietnamese scholars

have, from further training at Western universities I would

expect that having foreign scholars in Vietnam should result

in a similar productive exchange of ideas and collaborations

with Vietnamese scholars It is important that Vietnamese

researchers develop good funding proposals that will enable

them to tap the same sources of funding that foreign

scientists do Many international conservation organizations

now prioritize funding to range-country institutions and

individuals

Vietnam is one of the fastest-growing economies in the

region In this context, the Vietnam government must

im-prove the education and training of biologists within the

country and fund most of the research and conservation of

the country’s biological assets At another level, perhaps it

is a matter of the Vietnamese scholars shaping their own

roles in primatology and stepping up to assume the

leader-ship positions in which Tha.ch desires to see them instead

of merely foreign scholars stepping down Science should

have no boundaries in the form of race or nationality In

pre-ceding decades, Western scientists such as David Chivers

of the University of Cambridge, UK, and Warren

Brock-elman at Mahidol University, Thailand, were pioneers for

South and Southeast Asian primatology, having actively

en-couraged and trained range-country primatologists It was

with the help of Western scientists like Alan Rodgers and

John Sale that the Indian government set up the Wildlife

Institute of India in 1982, which produced the first tions of trained Indian field biologists, many of whom nowhave influential roles in conservation across the country Isee, however, Tha.ch’s point that the knowledge, skill sets,and resources that foreign scientists bring to the countrymay not fully benefit the Vietnamese To remedy this, Viet-namese government policy can create conditions in whichexternally funded projects are mandated to build in-countrycapacity as Bhutan, for example, has done

genera-Tha.ch calls for the formation of an action plan for mates in Vietnam—an excellent suggestion While such anaction plan could be facilitated by the International Prima-tological Society (IPS) and international donors, it is vitalthat the Vietnam government owns, funds, and implements

pri-it to make pri-it sustainable in the long term The action planshould not only prioritize species and landscapes for researchand conservation action but also detail how Vietnamese re-searchers will be trained, employed, and sustained in a mul-tidisciplinary framework, as Tha.ch recommends Tha.ch flagsthe issue of biologists’ lack of social sciences training This is

a drawback that afflicts conservation programs in the regionand has been discussed incisively by Freya St John et al.(2014) Although desirable, in field biology research or con-servation teams it may not always be feasible to have a socialscientist, and cross-disciplinary training of biologists mayindeed be a solution

Comment

Primatology, Integration, and World Anthropologies

Agust´ın Fuentes

University of Notre Dame

Whether applying a comparative approach contrasting

hu-mans as primates to other primates, navigating the

multifar-ious web of social and ecological interconnections between

people and other primates, or examining the mutual

muta-bility of our bodies and biomes via the bidirectional exchange

of pathogens, primatology is a key arena for anthropological

engagement From its inception as a field of study in the

early quarter of the 20th century to its core inclusion into

North American anthropology via Sherwood Washburn’s

“New Physical Anthropology” (1951) to its current status

as a locus for integrative approaches across

anthropologi-cal subfields (via ethnoprimatology, see Fuentes 2012; Riley

2013), primate studies remains an area that draws on diversetoolkits, stakeholders, and methodologies

But primatology has never been exclusively rooted inone locale, one cultural paradigm, or even one language.From the 1950s, distinct schools emerged in Japan, theUnited States and Canada, and various nations in Europe(particularly Germany, the Netherlands, and the UnitedKingdom) All developed their own particular approaches,intermingling with one another but never fully fusing Inthe last decades of the 20th century, the historical (or,better put, “colonial”) centers of power assisted and ac-cepted the training and inclusion of primatologists from the

“source countries”—those areas in the Global South wherenonhuman primates range and where the bulk of prima-tological fieldwork is conducted.1 India, Indonesia, South

Africa, Kenya, Uganda, Madagascar, Brazil, Mexico, Costa

Rica, Thailand, China, and Vietnam all began to develop

primate research programs relying on both internal and

external expertise The bulk of these programs had

con-servation as a central focus, and very few of them were

housed in, or had explicit connections to, departments of

anthropology

This is exactly what makes the current state of

primatol-ogy in Vietnam so interesting Tha.ch Mai Ho`ang introduces

us to the history of primate studies in the country and draws

a map of the focus on conservation and the myriad of

dis-ciplinary backgrounds Vietnamese primatologists bring to

bear Even more so than in most other countries, the

emer-gence of primatology in Vietnam is extensively intertwined

with conservation actions and conservation funding

Tha.ch argues that primatology in Vietnam is an activity,

a perspective, and not necessarily a cohesive discipline It

is the process of doing primatology that makes one a

pri-matologist in Vietnam not the particulars of the degree or

training one holds Given his overview of the central role of

conservation, of all stripes, in the development of primate

studies in Vietnam, it is not surprising that the act of

pri-matology has developed as an organic response to the local

contexts and national perspectives, ideologies, and realities

of Vietnam, as opposed to an imposed and formalized school

This makes the World Anthropology section a good venue

in which to contemplate Tha.ch’s call for a multidisciplinary

entanglement in Vietnamese primatology centered in and

around anthropology

Tha.ch proposes that “Vietnam is an ideal research

land-scape to explore emerging multidisciplinary topics in

pri-matology such as ethnopripri-matology and human primate

interaction, ethical issues in vaccination and laboratory

pri-mates, wildlife trade, genetics of primate conservation, and

so on” (this issue) and also points out that “the 54

differ-ent ethnic groups in Vietnam have diverse cultural values

and connections to their nonhuman primate relatives” (this

issue), concluding that Vietnam is a ripe landscape for

theo-retical and engaged anthropological primatological research

He also points out that integrated approaches, and training,

are required to most effectively navigate this landscape and

produce the kinds of outcomes that matter to the people

and other primates of Vietnam Herein lies the rub: in

Viet-nam, there is no precedent for this kind of integration.2

Due to his experiences in the Department of Anthropology

at the University of Colorado, Boulder, Tha.ch is currently

attempting to construct, under the tent of anthropology,

the kinds of multidisciplinary and integrative training and

research programs for which the diversity and complexity

of the Vietnamese primatological landscape call But this is

no easy task With no historical precedent, little

familiar-ity with a multifield North American–style anthropology in

the government and academic structures, and only a

hand-ful of established professional positions available, the uphill

trajectory for this project is steep

Tha.ch notes in this issue,

When we think about the future of primatology in Vietnam and the development of formal training opportunities, we must also recognize what Vietnamese students can and cannot do with the skills they learn as they pursue diverse career trajectories.

Is it responsible to train more Vietnamese primatologists out also providing more sustainable funding opportunities for careers in primatology or primate conservation for Vietnamese practitioners?

with-This is a common crisis globally for anthropology There

is great intrinsic value in developing a core of researchersand scholars in countries outside of the current centers ofacademic training (the colonial academies noted above), butthere is also an ethical dilemma: What is the future forsuch scholars? What are the opportunities for anthropolo-gists and primatologists who are trained in this 21st-centuryintellectual ideal but whose job opportunities and liveli-hoods are enmeshed in economic, political, and academicgrids of continuing inequality and limited infrastructure andsupport?

It is, as Tha.ch details, necessary to engage in a rative project between Vietnamese scholars and those fromoutside to co-develop the funding infrastructures that canfacilitate the emergence of his integrative program One cansee this as a call for anthropologists who are situated in,and have the support of, the traditional centers of anthro-pology and primatology to assist as best we can to desta-bilize the juggernaut of colonial legacies and make anthro-pology and primatology truly world disciplines Tha.ch MaiHo`ang and his national and international collaborators areworking on this in Vietnam I wish them great success andhope that a myriad of others will be inspired to join thisproject

collabo-NOTES

1 The one exception is Japan, where free-ranging primates (macaque monkeys) exist and long-term field studies on social behavior were pioneered Japan maintained its very strong local focus and established research and training connections with all other major primate areas (Neotropics, Sub-Saharan Africa, and South and Southeast Asia).

2 Nor is there in most other places.

REFERENCES CITED

Fuentes, Agust´ın

2012 Ethnoprimatology and the Anthropology of the Human– Primate Interface Annual Review of Anthropology 41:101– 117.

Riley, Erin P.

2013 Contemporary Primatology in Anthropology: Beyond the Epistemological Abyss American Anthropologist 115(3):411– 422.

Washburn, Sherwood L.

1951 The New Physical Anthropology Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences 13:298–304.

Development of Primatology in Habitat Countries: A View from Brazil

J ´ulio C ´esar Bicca-Marques

Pontif´ıcia Universidade Cat ´olica do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre,

Brazil

Tha.ch Mai Ho`ang’s thoughtful and critical evaluation of

the development of the field of primatology and primate

conservation in Vietnam (this issue) addresses elements that

characterize the history of primatology in many (perhaps

most) habitat countries Harboring the highest primate

diversity in the world, Brazil is one such country, although

it is culturally distinct and 25 times larger than Vietnam As

a scientist who began studying primates in the second half

of the 1980s soon after graduating in biological sciences,

I lived through the last 30 years of Brazilian primatology

Here I compare the picture Tha.ch draws of Vietnam with

my perception of key events in the establishment and

consolidation of Brazilian primatology I offer the Brazilian

case as an example of how Vietnamese primatology can

ensure that resident scientists (nationals and foreigners

alike) play a more active role in shaping the future of the

field

Similar to Vietnamese primatology, Brazilian

primatol-ogy is a field of biolprimatol-ogy instead of a subdiscipline of

anthro-pology The few undergraduate and graduate programs in

anthropology in Brazil focus on sociocultural, linguistic, and

archaeological anthropology, rarely offering courses on

bio-logical anthropology This connection with biology resulted

in a strong bond between Brazilian primatology and primate

ecology and conservation However, it also probably played

a critical role in the country’s deficiency of formal training

in primatology early on and the scarcity of academic

posi-tions for primate researchers in comparison with countries

in which the field belongs to anthropology, such as in the

United States In the Brazilian academic system,

primatol-ogists often compete for faculty positions with a wealth of

specialists, including other mammalogists, vertebrate

zool-ogists, ecolzool-ogists, and animal behaviorists, to name just a

few As a consequence, most Brazilian universities do not

have a single primatologist, and only a few of them have

two or more among their faculty Unlike in Vietnam,

fund-ing opportunities in Brazil are not focused on short-term

wildlife surveys Brazilian primatologists seek grants (mostly

governmental) for a wide breadth of research subjects, but

there is also an intense competition with the aforementioned

specialists because funding is limited

Training opportunities in primatology were rare in

Brazil until the early 1980s Concerned with this situation,

Milton Thiago de Mello (1916–), a Brazilian veterinarian and

professor at the University of Brasilia, organized six

special-ization courses in primatology focusing on several subjectsfrom 1983 to 1989 A total of 63 young Brazilian prima-tologists were trained in these courses, which were taught

by Brazilian and foreign scientists Many of these studentscurrently play leading roles in primate research and con-servation Thiago de Mello took the 12th Congress of theInternational Primatological Society to Bras´ılia in 1988 TheBrazilian Society of Primatology (SBPr, founded in 1979)also played a critical role in highlighting and consolidatingthis specialty by organizing national congresses once everytwo years in different regions of the country and publish-ing a selection of their presentations in 14 volumes of the

book series A Primatologia no Brasil (Primatology in Brazil).

The launching in 1993 of the IUCN/SSC Primate Specialist

Group newsletter Neotropical Primates, which was edited by

Anthony B Rylands and Ernesto Rodr´ıguez-Luna until 2005,represented another important new venue in which youngLatin American primatologists could publish the results oftheir research

Prospective young field primatologists during the 1980sand early 1990s in Brazil were met with a scarcity of gradu-ate programs in ecology, zoology, and animal behavior andadvisors trained in primatology However, since the mid-1990s, there has been a marked increase in the number

of graduate programs and training opportunities in and long-term field projects, together with a reinforcement

short-of national policies supporting PhD studies at home andabroad As a result, both the number of Brazilian primateresearchers holding PhDs and the number of publications

by Brazilian researchers in scholarly journals indexed in theWeb of Science have shown a steep increase since the 1990s.Differing from Vietnam, the new generations of Brazilianprimatologists received mostly in-country formal graduatetraining The number of Brazilian participants at meetings ofthe International Primatological Society has also increasedsince the early 2000s The launching by the Brazilian HigherEducation Authority of an online library system (Portal dePeriodicos CAPES) with open access to international journals

in 2000 also represented a significant step toward promotinghigh-quality research

Tha.ch notes that foreign scientists have played animportant, even outsize, role in Vietnamese primatology.Although a similar situation holds true for Brazilianprimatology, Brazilian scholars have taken the lead in mostresearch and conservation initiatives developed throughoutthe country in the past decades For instance, the NationalCenter for Research and Conservation of Brazilian Primates(CPB, founded in 2001) coordinated the evaluation of theconservation status of Brazilian primates, the results of which

were validated and adopted by the International Union for

Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN),

and prepared action plans for the conservation of threatened

species

In sum, the field of primatology in Brazil shares many

characteristics with that in Vietnam, including its strong

relationship with foreign scientists, its association with

biology rather than anthropology, and a lack of graduate

pro-grams devoted exclusively to its teaching In fact, there are no

graduate programs in primatology in Brazil Brazil was able to

produce national scholars over the last 30 years by developing

training courses, maintaining an active national society, andsupporting graduate training of primatologists in zoology,ecology, animal behavior, genetics, and other programs.Therefore, I emphasize that promoting training and creatingpost-training job opportunities are critical for empoweringnational scholars and advancing the field of primatology

in habitat countries In this respect, I have no doubt thatincorporating biological anthropology into undergraduateand graduate anthropology curricula would also signifi-cantly help achieve this goal in those countries in whichprimatology is almost strictly a specialty of biology

Comment

Making Primatology Vietnamese

Philip Taylor

Australian National University

Tha.ch Mai Ho`ang’s article (this issue) offers an insightful

contextualization of the challenges facing the discipline of

primatology, and primate conservation in Vietnam It

com-mences with a brief history of primatology in Vietnam and

follows with a description of some of this field’s unique

char-acteristics and challenges Finally, it concludes with some

well-posed questions: Is there a demand for primatology in

Vietnam? Is the expertise of Vietnamese primatologists

suf-ficient to the challenge? How would training in this field be

managed and institutionally accommodated? What would a

truly Vietnamese primatology look like?

Vietnam has become a magnet for primatologists As a

site of remarkable and oft-celebrated diversity in primate

species, Vietnam has over the past decades attracted a great

number of international primate researchers and

conserva-tion organizaconserva-tions Vietnam-based researchers have joined

them in making internationally significant contributions to

taxonomy, documentation, and conservation of endangered

species However, essential questions remain unanswered:

What unique biological, environmental, and sociohistorical

factors have sustained this diversity, and what interventions

are required in order to ensure that Vietnam is able to

main-tain it?

Unfortunately, Vietnam has gained notoriety as the site

for the extinction of a number of iconic large mammals and

for the numerous risks posed to biodiversity

Primatolo-gists are being forced by circumstances to understand and

respond to threats to primate survival as diverse as

hunt-ing, state-instigated uplands development, deforestation,

and demographic explosion Tha.ch Mai Ho`ang suggests that

his colleagues might usefully ask questions such as follows:

What values do primates hold for local human populations?

Furthermore, one might query whether opportunities exist

for transforming those values and building more sustainable

human–primate relationships Of particular danger is the

illegal wildlife trade By widening their sphere of inquiry

to incorporate the commoditization of the objects of theirstudy, primatologists in Vietnam are uniquely situated toshed light on the actors, values, and mechanisms of thewildlife trade and the opportunities for greatly improvingits regulation Owing to accessibility to primate populationsand good facilities, most primate research in Vietnam hasoccurred in special wildlife reserves within national parks.Important contextual questions arise here, too: Are nationalparks the only mechanism for sustaining primate popula-tions, do they work, and what needs to be modified to makethem function better?

This leads to queries regarding the capacity required

to do the job Tha.ch Mai Ho`ang points to Vietnam’s lownumber of trained and active primatologists, a scarcity offunding opportunities for long-term research, and a lack oflocal educational programs My own view is that it is essen-tial for any field of studies to have a core of specialists deeplytrained at the PhD level Such training affords scholarsthorough grounding in the principles of their discipline; theyknow how to design and implement original field research,and they can adequately analyze and contextualize in-depthcase studies Further, with such training, researchers arebetter able to articulate the nature and significance of theirfindings, they are up to date with international trends intheir discipline, and they understand the position of theirdiscipline in a wider interdisciplinary field The number ofprimatologists in Vietnam with these capabilities is far fromoptimal

There would appear to be little danger that cantly increasing the number of Vietnamese PhD holders

signifi-in primatology will lead to oversaturation of the field.The range of species, threats, and conservation strategiesrequiring urgent investigation is wide If higher-degreeresearch is pursued in the array of disciplines that inter-sect with primatology—biological anthropology, zoology,conservation biology, natural resource management, andlandscape ecology—graduates will be able to make contri-butions to these broader fields as well as to the field of prima-tology as narrowly defined Funding for such fundamental

research is available through a number of international

schol-arship schemes that prioritize development in Vietnam

Once trained, PhD graduates will be in a far stronger

posi-tion to design and obtain grant funding for major research

projects, to advocate for primatology and conservation

research, and to take part in graduate training programs

in Vietnam itself

The author speaks of the current institutional

frag-mentation of the field of primatology in Vietnam This

phenomenon is not unique to Vietnam, for primatologists

everywhere frequently find themselves the sole exponent of

the field in their departments, with at best only a cohort of

graduate students at hand who truly understand their

special-ization This can be a strength for Vietnam Primatologists

based in anthropology departments, for instance, bring

exhilarating breadth and historical depth to the comparative

inquiries pursued by anthropologists Their unique insights

into primate evolution, adaptation, and behavior add

reso-nance to the anthropological question of what it means to

be human In turn, a primatologist based in a Vietnamese

anthropology department will have access to the insights

of colleagues into the environmental, social, cultural, and

institutional landscapes of the regions in which most

pri-mates and nature reserves are located Vietnam has several

large anthropology departments, and embedding

primatol-ogy within them has the potential to provoke searching

de-bates about the scope and assumptions of anthropology in that

country, enrich the journey of inquiry available to students,

and greatly increase the scope of collaborative research

projects that a department can undertake Further, having

a primatologist on staff will link anthropology colleagues to

science disciplines and open up opportunities for

anthropol-ogists to engage collaboratively in STEM-related research.1

Similarly, an ethnoprimatologist based in a wildlife tuary can design programs to collaborate with the people

sanc-of diverse social and ethnic backgrounds who live in andadjacent to the reserve A primate biologist or conservationanthropologist employed in an ecological research institutecan add breadth and rigor to the study of landscapes, biodi-versity, species documentation, and sustainable livelihoodspursued at such an institute Vietnam’s numerous recentlycreated national parks and nature reserves for primate con-servation will continue to be a major focal point for pri-matological research Much research of an interdisciplinarynature is required to make these institutional endeavors sus-tainable and to enhance their relationship with communitystakeholders

In conclusion, Tha.ch Mai Ho`ang’s article convinces methat primatology has excellent prospects for strong consol-idation as a Vietnamese discipline The discipline faces stiffchallenges in establishing its relevance in the public mindand finding a place in the institutional landscape However,

it is the Vietnamese people alone who have the cultural andinstitutional knowledge to work effectively in education,public consciousness raising, and policy advocacy and im-plementation on behalf of primates and primate research intheir country Their international colleagues can give themsupport in this venture by making educational and researchcollaboration with Vietnamese scholars central to their dis-ciplinary practice

NOTE

1 STEM refers to science, technology, engineering, and matics, a cluster of disciplines that long have held ascendancy among the priorities of grant-making agencies in countries such

mathe-as Vietnam and Australia.

Preface: On Anthropology in Israel

Virginia R Dominguez

Associate Editor for World Anthropology

The following subsection includes responses to three

ques-tions I formulated and sent to all living past heads of the

Israel Anthropological Association Marked with asterisks

below are the past and living IAA heads who responded

to my request, but I nonetheless include the full list of

past heads (called chairs until relatively recently but now

called presidents) Nineteen colleagues have served the IAA

in that capacity since the founding of the association in

1973; nine of them responded to my three questions, and

those answers appear in this special World Anthropology

subsection

Most have been sociocultural anthropologists, but the

IAA was founded by a physical–biological anthropologist,

Marcus Goldstein, then at the Tel Aviv University School ofMedicine Patricia Smith (1985–87), a forensic anthropol-ogist, was the last physical–biological anthropologist whoserved in this role, but several medical anthropologists haveheaded the IAA (some of them physical–biological anthro-pologists and some of them with primary training in socio-cultural anthropology): Marcus Goldstein (1973–75), Phyl-lis Palgi (1975–77), Patricia Smith (1985–87), and HenryAbramovitch (1993–95) Some do work that overlaps with,and at times is fully immersed in, medical anthropology aswell This includes Meira Weiss (2001–03) and Yoram Bilu(1989–91)

A few comments are warranted about some unusualpresidential terms in more recent years Andr´e Levy (2003–07) did two back-to-back terms Dan Rabinowitz (1998–2001) and Orit Abuhav (2007–10) both held this post for

three years each Amalia Sa’ar held this post for less than

a year (in 2014) because she was also tapped, almost

si-multaneously, to head the new and autonomous

graduate-training Department of Anthropology at Haifa University,

and she was unable to maintain her presidency of the IAA

Harvey Goldberg, who had headed the IAA from 1979 to

1981, came back to do an additional term (2014–16) in her

place

Let me also comment on the questions I asked and the

reasons I asked this group Rather than choose one

anthro-pologist in Israel to write an essay about anthropology in

Israel (a choice I considered especially difficult and

prob-lematic in general, even before the discussion within the

AAA about whether to boycott or otherwise impose

sanc-tions on Israeli universities), I chose instead to approach all

living past heads of the Israel Anthropological Association

and ask them to respond to three questions I gave them

all a desired maximum length (greater than the comments I

typically include but less than the length of our usual World

Anthropology articles) I thought (and still firmly believe)

that the range of views and accounts in such a grouping had

the best chance of capturing the diversity of views and

un-derstandings in the practice of anthropology in Israel (as well

as some constancies and commonalities)

My three questions were fairly straightforward, though I

hoped they would allow our colleagues in Israel some leeway

in interpreting them My questions were as follows:

(1) What kind of work do you associate with Israeli

anthropology—Now? Twenty to thirty years ago? Fifty

to sixty years ago?

(2) What do you find most challenging in Israeli

anthro-pology or as an anthropologist in Israel?

(3) What do you find most praiseworthy and productive

in (the practice of) anthropology in Israel?

My questions were sent to each IAA past head in

separate e-mails in English (though Phyllis Palgi’s daughter

helped me by downloading and giving her then very elderly

mother, now deceased, a hard copy of the e-mail) I knew

they could all read English, but I told each one that she or

he could answer my questions in whatever language they

wanted to use or felt most comfortable using, whether

it be English, Hebrew, French, or Arabic All but one

sent me responses in English (not surprisingly quite well

written, though still copyedited as is the work of all

authors appearing in the American Anthropologist, regardless

of location or native-speaker status)

As one looks at the list below (a list of past IAA presidents

plus Harvey Goldberg, who is both a past IAA head and the

current president of the association), several demographic

characteristics are also worth mentioning (and they are, in

fact, mentioned by some of the colleagues who responded

to my three questions) All the IAA heads, past and present,are (and have been) Jewish; nearly all are (and have been)Ashkenazi (that is, with ancestry in northern and easternEurope), and 12 of the 19 are men Clearly, in recent yearsmore women have been elected head of the IAA (indeedfive of the past seven IAA heads have been women: MeiraWeiss, Orit Abuhav, Nurit Bird-David, Efrat Ben-Ze’ev,and Amalia Sa’ar) Also, and until quite recently, IAA headshave been professionally located at Israel’s major researchuniversities: Tel Aviv University, the Hebrew University ofJerusalem, Haifa University, and Ben Gurion University ofthe Negev Only one (Sam Cooper, 1991–93) was at BarIlan University, the explicitly religious Jewish university inIsrael that is located in a suburb of greater Tel Aviv It isonly in the past decade that colleagues in Israel outside theuniversity system have served the IAA in that role OritAbuhav (2007–10) was the first; Efrat Ben-Ze’ev (2012–14) is the second It is probably also worth pointing out thatmany anthropologists who migrated to Israel from English-speaking countries (primarily the United States) played thisrole in the first half of the IAA’s existence and that others(primarily native-born, Hebrew-dominant colleagues) havebeen IAA heads over the past two decades

I am pleased that colleagues from across several tions responded to my questions and that their words appearhere That they also served as IAA heads from each of thedecades since the founding of the IAA is a plus Of course,they each articulate individual views of anthropology in Is-rael, the government in Israel, the IAA, their own goals anddesires, and their own hopes for the future They speak asindividuals here, not as representatives of any organization

genera-or university I urge readers to read them all—not just one

or two

Finally, the list below is also interesting because of namesthat are not included, and anthropologists outside Israel maywonder about the list In some cases, I know that colleagueswere approached to serve as head of the IAA but declinedfor a variety of reasons In other cases, I simply do not knowthe reasons for their absence Especially surprising to manyreaders will no doubt be the absence of well-published andwell-known colleagues—from Emanuel Marx (now retiredfrom Tel Aviv University) to Don Handelman (now retiredfrom the Hebrew University of Jerusalem) To some whomight have knowledge of anthropology in Israel, the ab-sence from that list of S N Eisenstadt (now deceased) will

be interesting Though not trained as an anthropologist assuch, Eisenstadt often thought of himself—and referred tohimself—as an anthropologist and not just a sociologist, andfor years many members of the Department of Sociologyand Anthropology faculty at the Hebrew University wereformer students of his