Seminarium doktoranckie - Environment and Anthropology

The goals that are to be achieved in the 2020/2021 Academic Year

The seminar will build upon the topics considered in the year 2019/2020. However, the

progress of PhD projects necessitates concentration on more focused areas related to each of

the projects. Therefore the seminars of the year 2020-21 will be mostly dedicated to specific

subjects proposed by the of the participating PhD students. The main goal will be to expose the

participants to the chosen aspects of the PhD projects in order to gain fruitful feedback and

cross-fertilization of the ideas. However, to avoid to overly separation of the PhD projects each

third seminar will be prepared jointly by all PhD students on the topic bridging all PhD projects.

The means that will be used to achieve those goals

There will be 6 seminars ( 3 seminars/per semester), 3 h each. Two of the three seminars in

each semester will be chaired by a respective student. The third seminar in each semester will

be prepared jointly by three PhD students participating in the seminar and dedicated to the

topic uniting their PhD projects. Each seminar will consist of an introductory presentation by

the assigned student or students (45 mins), then shorter interventions followed by general

discussion.

Proposed dates:

Thursdays, 12 a.m.- 2:30 p.m., on Nov 5, Dec 3, Jan 14, Feb. 4, March 18 and April 8

Evaluation policy

Student’s work will be evaluated based on an aggregated score of his/her performance as a

chairman, activities during seminars and short assays prepared after each of the seminar. The

assays are supposed to concentrate on the relevance of the subject of the seminar to the

participant’s PhD research project.

Topics of seminars

Nov 5, 2020. Toni Romani. The evolution of beds: insights from our Great Ape cousins 

We will discuss how and why animals make their beds. A good bed can benefit in terms of

quality of sleep and health. How important is nesting and sleeping in animals? Are all the beds

the same? What are the advantages of sleeping in a good bed? How do animals choose the

right materials to construct their beds? Although it is debated, nesting may be considered one

of the first forms of tool use. Different neighboring communities can show difference in in basic

behaviors such as nesting and tool use. We will present preliminary results on how

chimpanzees of the forest of Bugoma in Uganda are building their nests (or beds) both up to

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the trees and on the ground. What is this telling us regarding culture in non-human animals and

what is it's importance in human evolution?

Dec 3, 2020. Aleksandra Brylska. Understanding the radioactivity. The uncertainty around the

contamination of the exclusion zones in Chernobyl and Fukushima.

The seminar will focus on discussion on the impact of the radioactivity on the environments in

exclusion zones in Chernobyl and Fukushima. I would like to as why there are so many

uncertainty around this topic and so much inconclusive or even conflicting research on the toxic

environments. The second part of the topic will consist the question of roots of social mistrust

in the scientific research on the radioactive contamination. I would like to analyze the official

discourse concerning the level of toxicity and the public response to it. During the seminar to

more than stating some thesis, I would like to discuss together the existing problem with

radioactivity and the possible ways of overcoming it.

Proposed bibliography:

Kate Brown, Manual for Survival: A Chernobyl Guide to the Future [fragment], W.W. Norton &

Company, New York 2019.

Jan 14, 2021. Toni Romani- the Chair, in collaboration with Aleksandra Jabłońska and

Aleksandra Brylska. How to study stress and welfare in wild and captive birds and mammals.

During this meeting, we will discuss how we can identify stress and well-being among birds and

mammals under natural and captive conditions. We will focus on the concept of natural

habitats as the ‘landscape of fear’ for the residing animals. The Veissier & Boissy model will be

also discussed. We will also analyse different methods of measuring animal welfare and stress.

We will consider what factors influence the increase/decrease of stress and welfare.

Bibliography:

 Baker, B. I., Machin, K. L., & Schwean-Lardner, K. (2019). When pain and stress interact:

looking at stress-induced analgesia and hyperalgesia in birds. World's Poultry Science

Journal, 75(3), 457-468.

 Clark, F. E. (2017). Cognitive enrichment and welfare: Current approaches and future

directions. Animal Behavior and Cognition, 4(1), 52-71.

 Costa, P., Macchi, E., Valle, E., De Marco, M., Nucera, D. M., Gasco, L., & Schiavone, A.

(2016). An association between feather damaging behavior and corticosterone

metabolite excretion in captive African grey parrots (Psittacus erithacus). PeerJ, 4,

e2462.

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 Kolodziejczyk, K., & Cywinska, A. (2019). Oznaczanie metabolitów kortyzolu w kale jako

metoda oceny stresu u dzikich zwierząt. Życie Weterynaryjne, 94(05).

 D. P. J. Kuijper, C. de Kleine, M. Churski, P. van Hooft, J. Bubnicki and B. Jędrzejewska.

Landscape of fear in Europe: wolves affect spatial patterns of ungulate browsing in

Białowiez. a Primeval Forest, Poland. Ecography 36: 1263–1275, 2013.

 Veissier, I., & Boissy, A. (2007). Stress and welfare: Two complementary concepts that

are intrinsically related to the animal's point of view. Physiology & Behavior, 92(3), 429-

433.

March 18, 2021. Aleksandra Jabłońska. Ornitotherapy – perspectives of mutual rehabilitation

of birds and people

During this seminar we will reflect on the perspectives of mutual therapy of people and birds.

Research shows that forms of therapy such as dogotherapy or felinotherapy have positive

effects in treating mental illnesses. On the other hand, animal therapies meet with great

criticism from animal behaviourists. So far, ornitotherapy has not been conducted in the world.

During the discussion we will consider whether a form of therapy that would be beneficial for

both birds and humans is possible. We will also discuss the possibility of reliable research on

ornitotherapy.

Bibliography:

 Aslan, L., Adizel, Ö., & Sancak, T. (2018). Treatment and rehabilitation of wild birds and

mammals. Indian Journal of Animal Research, 52(4), 623-627.

 Boissy, A., Manteuffel, G., Jensen, M. B., Moe, R. O., Spruijt, B., Keeling, L. J., ... &

Bakken, M. (2007). Assessment of positive emotions in animals to improve their welfare.

Physiology & behavior, 92(3), 375-397.

 Cox, D. T., & Gaston, K. J. (2016). Urban bird feeding: connecting people with nature.

PloS one, 11(7), e0158717.

 Wijker, C., Leontjevas, R., Spek, A., & Enders-Slegers, M. J. (2020). Effects of dog assisted

therapy for adults with autism spectrum disorder: an exploratory randomized controlled

trial. Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 50(6), 2153-2163.

April 8, 2021. Aleksandra Brylska- the Chair, in collaboration with Toni Romani and

Aleksandra Jabłońska. The phenomenon of dark tourism.

During the seminar we would like to look into the phenomena of dark tourism in the case of

Chernobyl and Fukushima. As the popularity of this activity is growing it is safe to assume that

these tours are in part responsible for common perception of the both power plant failures.

Therefore, it is important to analyze the discourse created by the touring companies, especially

how they describe the both exclusion zones. During the seminar we would like to partially focus

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on theoretical reflection on the dark tourism as well as to analyze the language describing the

trips to Chernobyl and Fukushima, and some personal accounts of people who visited those

sites.

Proposed bibliography:

Megan Good, Shaping Japan’s disaster heritage, in: Reconsidering Cultural Heritage in East Asia,

Ubquity Press 2016, pp. 139-161.

Karena Kalmbach, Radiation and Borders: Chernobyl as a National and Transnational Site of

Memory, “Global Environment” Vol. 6, No. 11 2013, pp. 130-159.

Proposed dates:

Thursdays, 12 a.m.- 2:30 p.m., on Nov 5, Dec 3, Jan 14, Feb. 4, March 18 and April 8

Evaluation policy

Student’s work will be evaluated based on an aggregated score of his/her performance as a

chairman, activities during seminars and short assays prepared after each of the seminar. The

assays are supposed to concentrate on the relevance of the subject of the seminar to the

participant’s PhD research project.

Proposed dates:

Thursdays, 2.00 p.m.- 16:30 p.m., on Oct. 28, 2021; Nov. 25, 2021; Jan 27, 2022; March 24, 2022; April 21, 2022 and May 26, 2022.