Letícia Soares, Kristina L Cockle, Ernesto Ruelas Inzunza, José Tomás Ibarra, Carolina Isabel Miño, Santiago Zuluaga, Elisa Bonaccorso, Juan Camilo Ríos-Orjuela, Flavia A Montaño-Centellas, Juan F Freile, María A Echeverry-Galvis, Eugenia Bianca Bonaparte, Luisa Maria Diele-Viegas, Karina Speziale, Sergio A Cabrera-Cruz, Orlando Acevedo-Charry, Enriqueta Velarde, Cecilia Cuatianquiz Lima, Valeria S Ojeda, Carla S Fontana, Alejandra Echeverri, Sergio A Lambertucci, Regina H Macedo, Alberto Esquivel, Steven C Latta, Irene Ruvalcaba-Ortega, Maria Alice S Alves, Diego Santiago-Alarcon, Alejandro Bodrati, Fernando González-García, Nestor Fariña, Juan Esteban Martínez-Gómez, Rubén Ortega-Álvarez, María Gabriela Núñez Montellano, Camila C Ribas, Carlos Bosque, Adrián S Di Giacomo, Juan I Areta, Carine Emer, Lourdes Mugica Valdés, Clementina González, María Emilia Rebollo, Giselle Mangini, Carlos Lara, José Cristóbal Pizarro, Victor R Cueto, Pablo Rafael Bolaños-Sittler, Juan Francisco Ornelas, Martín Acosta, Marcos Cenizo, Miguel Ângelo Marini, Leopoldo D Vázquez-Reyes, José Antonio González-Oreja, Leandro Bugoni, Martin Quiroga, Valentina Ferretti, Lilian T Manica, Juan M Grande, Flor Rodríguez-Gómez, Soledad Diaz, Nicole Büttner, Lucia Mentesana, Marconi Campos-Cerqueira, Fernando Gabriel López, André C Guaraldo, Ian MacGregor-Fors, Francisca Helena Aguiar-Silva, Cristina Y Miyaki, Silvina Ippi, Emilse Mérida, Cecilia Kopuchian, Cintia Cornelius, Paula L Enríquez, Natalia Ocampo-Peñuela, Katherine Renton, Jhan C Salazar, Luis Sandoval, Jorge Correa Sandoval, Pedro X Astudillo, Ancilleno O Davis, Nicolás Cantero, David Ocampo, Oscar Humberto Marin Gomez, Sérgio Henrique Borges, Sergio Cordoba-Cordoba, Alejandro G Pietrek, Carlos B de Araújo, Guillermo Fernández, Horacio de la Cueva, João Marcos Guimarães Capurucho, Nicole A Gutiérrez-Ramos, Ariane Ferreira, Lílian Mariana Costa, Cecilia Soldatini, Hannah M Madden, Miguel Angel Santillán, Gustavo Jiménez-Uzcátegui, Emilio A Jordan, Guilherme Henrique Silva Freitas, Paulo C Pulgarin-R, Roberto Carlos Almazán-Núñez, Tomás Altamirano, Milka R Gomez, Myriam C Velazquez, Rebeca Irala, Facundo A Gandoy, Andrea C Trigueros, Carlos A Ferreyra, Yuri Vladimir Albores-Barajas, Markus Tellkamp, Carine Dantas Oliveira, Andrea Weiler, Ma del Coro Arizmendi, Adrianne G Tossas, Rebecca Zarza, Gabriel Serra, Rafael Villegas-Patraca, Facundo Gabriel Di Sallo, Cleiton Valentim, Jorge Ignacio Noriega, Giraldo Alayon García, Martín R de la Peña, Rosendo M Fraga, and Pedro Vitor Ribeiro Martins
A major barrier to advancing ornithology is the systemic exclusion of professionals from the Global South. A recent special feature, Advances in Neotropical Ornithology, and a shortfalls analysis therein, unintentionally followed a long-standing pattern of highlighting individuals, knowledge, and views from the Global North, while largely omitting the perspectives of people based within the Neotropics. Here, we review current strengths and opportunities in the practice of Neotropical ornithology. Further, we discuss problems with assessing the state of Neotropical ornithology through a northern lens, including discovery narratives, incomplete (and biased) understanding of history and advances, and the promotion of agendas that, while currently popular in the north, may not fit the needs and realities of Neotropical research. We argue that future advances in Neotropical ornithology will critically depend on identifying and addressing the systemic barriers that hold back ornithologists who live and work in the Neotropics: unreliable and limited funding, exclusion from international research leadership, restricted dissemination of knowledge (e.g., through language hegemony and citation bias), and logistical barriers. Moving forward, we must examine and acknowledge the colonial roots of our discipline, and explicitly promote anti-colonial agendas for research, training, and conservation. We invite our colleagues within and beyond the Neotropics to join us in creating new models of governance that establish research priorities with vigorous participation of ornithologists and communities within the Neotropical region. To include a diversity of perspectives, we must systemically address discrimination and bias rooted in the socioeconomic class system, anti-Blackness, anti-Brownness, anti-Indigeneity, misogyny, homophobia, tokenism, and ableism. Instead of seeking individual excellence and rewarding top-down leadership, institutions in the North and South can promote collective leadership. In adopting these approaches, we, ornithologists, will join a community of researchers across academia building new paradigms that can reconcile our relationships and transform science. Spanish and Portuguese translations are available in the Supplementary Material.