This project co-funded by the Science and Society and Biology and Society Programs examines ethnologically a reintroduction and monitoring project for Przewalski's horses in China's Kalamaili Ungulates Nature Reserve (KUNR). The project focuses on the comparative study of scientific practice and knowledge production across distinctive cultural groups of actors in a complex political state: Han Chinese and Kazakh scientists, technicians, and pastoral nomads. The goal of the project is to use ethnography to describe the existing Wildhorse Breeding Center (WHBC) scientific monitoring system and an internationally-supported participatory component for pastoral nomads. More specifically, the project explores the different modes of scientific reasoning and communication between pastoral nomads, WHBC monitoring technicians, and the scientists who make use of both groups' observational data.
The intellectual merit of the project lies in its use of a distinctive applied, practice approach in which the researcher contributes to the practical objectives of establishing the participatory monitoring program while creatively and reflexively using ethnographic methods to theorize the observations and interpretations it produces. Moreover, there are no comparable studies of science in this sociocultural context or of wildlife monitoring and management more generally. As the principal investigator facilitates dialogue between scientists and technicians about the observations and interpretations of the reserve's pastoral nomads, the project makes a contribution to the philosophy of science, particularly in exploring the application of democratic social epistemologies and the inclusiveness of disadvantaged and marginal individuals and communities in scientific practice, while exploring philosophically their potential in non-western and non-democratic states. The broader impact of the project involves bringing attention to social aspects of scientific networks in China and its ability to highlight an important social aspect of Chinese science: the under-representation of ethnic minorities in scientific institutions.
