Transparent tusks: Open research practices in ivory research

Molly Brown, Postgraduate Researcher, Leverhulme Centre for Anthropocene Biodiversity

Others involved in this project: Prof Colin Beale, Prof Victoria Wells (PhD Supervisors) and May Sumbwanyambe (Artist-in-Residence), Leverhulme Centre for Anthropocene Biodiversity

Summary

This case study focused on research surrounding the ivory trade and engages in an interdisciplinary collaboration across arts and sciences to create new avenues for discussing this challenging topic area. The researcher notes that open research practices are far from the norm within this field and explains how they embedded open research practices such as registering study protocols, using open-source software for reproducible and collaborative research outputs, and engaging in public research dissemination activities throughout their project. They hope that their experience during this project helps to promote future engagement with open research practices within this field.

^{Elephant in Okavango Delta, Botswana (Credit: Joaquín Rivero, Unsplash Licence -}^source⁾

Case Study

This research seeks to understand the demand for ivory, primarily by Chinese consumers, using interdisciplinary techniques from social marketing and behaviour change approaches. Tackling illegal and unsustainable demand for ivory can be a highly controversial space, where open and inclusive research practices have yet to become the norm. Rather, challenging assumptions or the status quo are often responded to with emotional outcry and controversy, which can overshadow necessary research.

Through outreach activities that bridge the science-arts gap, this researcher aimed to bring light to seldom heard sides of the ivory trade to new audiences in the UK, who may be resistant to discussing the topic. First, the researcher collaborated with a playwright, May Sumbwanyambe, who was an artist-in-residence at the Leverhulme Centre for Anthropocene Biodiversity. Together they worked to amplify local Indigenous African voices on the topic of ivory trade and human-elephant conflict by creating a BBC Radio 4 play, which purposely left audiences with questions unanswered to stimulate new conversations not prevalent in UK media. Second, the researcher aimed to continue to open up the conversation in the UK on ivory, by helping to curate an ivory exhibition with the National Trust for Scotland. They used Brodie Castle’s ivory collection to provide a window into the multifaceted values of ivory: past, present, and future. This gave visitors a chance to learn about the central role ivory has played in human history and the importance of understanding different views and cultures when tackling illegal trade today.

Carved ivory artefacts, a needle case and letter opener

^{Ivory needle case and letter opener at Brodie Castle, National Trust for Scotland}

Reflecting on these experiences, the researcher found that once given the opportunity, most people are open to hearing different perspectives. They found this encouraging and mentioned that it gave them the drive to continue to bring the sometimes-challenging nuance required to deeply understand problems of illegal wildlife trade. The researcher found using creative means to help explore these emotive socio-ecological topics the best means to engage new audiences and discuss the most challenging elements, whilst still providing space for genuine nuance and depth.

The researcher strived to embed open research practices into their work on understanding the behavioural drivers and barriers of ivory consumption in China. To help increase the transparency of the first systematic review done on this topic, they published a protocol on the Collaboration for Environmental Evidence’s open-access registry of titles and protocols for prospective evidence syntheses in the environmental sector (PROCEED). They also used the free open-source software Overleaf for their research, enabling real-time collaboration and reproducibility of their research.

Since beginning their PhD, it became clear to them how challenging data and knowledge exchange can be for those working across different sectors tackling illegal wildlife trade, despite common goals. Therefore, they hope that their research and positive experiences, despite the challenges, helps to encourage and normalise more inclusive research practices in this field.

Links

University news story: Centring People in the Story of Ivory
National Trust for Scotland exhibition story: Ivory exhibition at Brodie Castle
Systematic review protocol on ProceedEvidence.org: https://doi.org/10.57808/proceed.2023.23

Funding

Leverhulme Trust Research Centre grant (RC-2018-021) — the Leverhulme Centre for Anthropocene Biodiversity

Licensing information

Except where otherwise noted copyright in this work belongs to the author(s), licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License