The Perspectives Collective

Volume 3 Out Now!

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Volume 3 Out Now! 〰️

News from the Collective:


Perspectives Honored at IPS 2025

We are excited to announce that Perspectives has been named as a 2025 EDEI awardee at the International Primatological Society (IPS) Annual Meeting in Madagascar! The Collective, represented by Derry Taylor and Harmonie Klein, also presented a poster on their most recent project: Female Territoriality in Budongo.

New Film Out Featuring Geresomu Muhumuza (Perspectives Collective Member)

GERESOMU, a film about one of our members, is now available to stream on Vimeo and ecoflix.

Set in the Budongo Forest of Western Uganda, GERESOMU is a short documentary about Muhumuza Geresomu, a local field assistant whose knowledge of the forest has quietly shaped decades of chimpanzee research. For over 30 years, Geresomu has worked at the Budongo Conservation Field Station, guiding visiting researchers and sharing his deep understanding of the forest’s wildlife. He can recognize chimpanzees by their calls, predict their movements, and name every plant in their diet. His scientific expertise extends to birds, insects, snakes—and even the weather. This film is a portrait of a gifted naturalist, a generous teacher, and the kind of knowledge that comes from a lifetime spent in close relationship with a place. Through Geresomu’s story, the film seeks to show the world where science really comes from. Directed by Elodie Freymann.


MEET THE COLLECTIVE

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MEET THE COLLECTIVE 〰️

We are a group of chimpanzee field staff, based out of the Budongo Conservation Field Station (BCFS) in Western Uganda, working to improve primatology through inclusion of local knowledge and diverse perspectives.

Our Mission:

Local knowledge provides both the conceptual and practical backbone to field primatology. Yet, the voices of local researchers in primatology are surprisingly quiet. Largely, this is due to an academic culture that privileges mainstream scientific knowledge over others, which manifests itself in the form of institutional biases that exclude local voices from mainstream discourse. Perspectives aims to provide a venue for the voice of local knowledge to be heard. Perspectives is a free-format multi-media journal for local knowledge in primatology that allows local researchers and field staff to say what they want to say, how they want to say it. Our aim is to work towards making primatology more socially equitable through social and epistemological inclusivity.