Theoretical reflections on ethnobiology in the third millennium

Journal of Ethnobiology, 2007

I recognize four phases of ethnobiology: I, II, III, and IV. Ethnobiology I begins well before the formal naming of ethnobiology as a scholarly endeavor at the end of the 19 th century. This initial phase has been widely characterized, albeit over simply, as essentially utilitarian. Ethnobiology II was elaborated in the cognitive/linguistic anthropology of the 1960s. Ethnobiology III integrates knowledge with practice, stressing the ecological consequences of knowledge applied to make a living. Ethnobiology IV emphasizes the rights of indigenous peoples to control their traditional knowledge. I elaborate this framework here and consider how these diverse perspectives might be integrated more effectively in the future.

Ethnobiology and Conservation, 2012

There are different links between ecology and ethnobotany. In principle, because they have some common interests, like the conservation of plant resources. Nevertheless, the consolidation of the ecology as a science of synthesis that is based on the complexity of relationships between organisms and their surroundings, allows the ecology to provide a conceptual framework for more complex and comprehensive ethnobotany. This is also, for origin, a science of synthesis. In this contribution we discuss the basic aspects of ecology that can become guides for a complex framework of ethnobotany, which acts as a context in which their contributions to acquire significance. It also discusses various aspects of ethnobotany which, by its own complexity, are linked to the theoretical framework of ecology. Finally, we consider ethnobotany as an ecological science, from which certain assumptions are given, that can guide investigations based on the complex relationships between people and plants, the object of study of this science.

Mètode Revista de difusió de la investigació, 2015

Ethnobotany, a discipline located at the intersection between natural science and social science, is sometimes misunderstood by researchers from one or other of these fi elds. In this article we discuss the positive and negative aspects of interdisciplinarity regarding this subject, and we argue for its status as a true science from different points of view. Our conclusion is that ethnobotanical research-like all ethnobiological research in general-undoubtedly exists within the scientifi c fi eld and is successfully established, active and productive. In addition, ethnobotany is a citizen science: the participation of the population is essential for research, which must be communicated to academia and to the general citizen.

HSE Hist and Anth MA, 2023

Animals are historical actors, but not historical subjects. They act in human history according to their own species-specific bio-social demands, quite impervious to human ideological demands and ethical standards. And this is why we should study them: the relationships people form with these stubbornly mute social actors often give us social scientists a surprising angle from which to study human worlds. In this class, we explore how historians and anthropologists have studied human relationships with all those non-human others who comprise our lives: the mammals, insects, fish, fungi, microbes that form our human families, bodies, diets, social histories and commodity chains. We will examine the diverse ways these non-humans have been made part of our economic and political worlds as workers, symbols and soldiers. Attention to the non-human requires a delicate theoretical framework. It requires looking past such dualities as subject and object, nature and culture-without simply collapsing them entirely to say that between humans and animals there is no significant difference. By studying how scholars have tackled this uneasy problematic in their ethnographic studies of other species, this class will grapple with the strange fact that "human nature," as Anna Tsing puts is, "is an interspecies relationship."

Connections between animals and humans date back thousands of years, and cultures all over the world have developed characteristic ways of interacting with the regional fauna over time. Human communities have accumulated a huge store of knowledge about animals through the centuries (passed from generation to generation, largely through oral traditions) that is closely integrated with many other cultural aspects, and this zoological knowledge is an important part of our human cultural heritage. The variety of interactions (both past and present) that human cultures maintain with animals is the subject matter of Ethnozoology, a discipline that has its roots as deep within the past as the first relationships between humans and other animals. Within this context, ethnozoology can be viewed as a discipline that examines the historical, economic, sociological, anthropological and environmental aspects of the relationships between humans and animals. These studies can aid in the evaluation of the impacts human populations have on native animal species and in the development of sustainable management plans -and are thus fundamental to conservation efforts. Additionally, popular knowledge about the regional fauna can be important to academic research projects and offers the possibility of significant savings in comparison to the costs involved with conventional methodologies. The present work gives a brief introduction to Ethnozoology, focusing its importance, historic aspects and current trends.

Ethnobiology is a multidisciplinary field of study that draws on approaches and methods from both the social and biological sciences. Ethnobiology aims at investigating culturally based biological and environmental knowledge, cultural perception and cognition of the natural world, and associated behaviours and practices. Ethnomedicine is concerned with the cultural interpretations of health, disease and illness and also addresses the health care seeking process and healing practices. Research interest and activities in the areas of ethnobiology and ethnomedicine have increased tremendously in the last decade. Since the inception of the disciplines, scientific research in ethnobiology and ethnomedicine has made important contributions to understanding traditional subsistence and medical knowledge and practice. The Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine (JEE) invites manuscripts and reviews based on original interdisciplinary research from around the world on the inextricable relationships between human cultures and nature, on Traditional Environmental Knowledge (TEK), folk and traditional medical knowledge, as well as on the relevance of the above for Primary Health Care (PHC) policies in developing countries.

Journal of Medicinal Plants Studies 5(3):123-129, 2017

Plants resources have served not only for the primary human needs but also for health care, since time immemorial. Indigenous knowledge is being recognized worldwide owing to their intrinsic value as well as potential instrumental connotation to phytodiversity conservation and modern drug development. Ethnobotany has played important role in the development of new drugs for many centuries and becoming increasingly important in defining strategies and actions for conservation or recuperation of residual forests. There is greater interest in ethnobotany today, than at any time in the discipline's history. This article analyses the relevance of ethnobotany in current scenario. It is anticipated that, in the future, ethnobotany may play an increasingly important role in sustainable development and biodiversity conservation. Introduction Ethnobotany-An Introduction People of all cultures have always depended on plants for their primary needs (food, shelter, warmth, medicines, etc.), and have naturally learned diverse applications of plants. In the course of nomadic roaming, this knowledge was exchanged with neighboring tribes, friends and foe, and was gradually expanded upon. Thus, plant knowledge has been passed around the world since the beginning of time, and frequently, the actual plants themselves have spread along as well. The investigation of plants and their uses is one of the most primary human concerns and has been practiced by all cultures since generations, though it wasn't called 'Ethnobotany'. The term "Ethnobotany" was coined by US botanist John William Harshberger in 1895. Ethnobotany is coined with two terms i.e., "ethno"-study of people and "botany"-study of plants; per se it is the study of the relationship between plants and people. It is considered as a branch of ethnobiology and is a multidisciplinary science defined as the interaction between plants and people. The relationship between plants and human cultures is not limited to the use of plants for food, clothing and shelter but also includes their use for religious ceremonies, ornamentation and health care (Schultes, 1992) [21]. The focus of ethnobotany is on how plants have been or are used, managed and perceived in human societies and includes plants used for food, medicine, divination, cosmetics, dyeing, textiles, for building, tools, currency, clothing, rituals, social life and music. The relationship between people and plants has always been profoundly important. Plants play an important role in every aspect of our lives and without them life is not possible. Plants not only regulate the concentration of gases in the air, but also the only organisms capable of transforming sunlight into food energy on which all other forms of life ultimately depend upon. Given their extensive range of knowledge of medicinal plants, indigenous people remain the ultimate resource for retrieving this information for the purpose of application, particularly in modern medicine. Ethnobotany can be categorized in two major groups. First is basic ethnobotany that includes compilation and organization of information about biota obtained from indigenous and other peoples, such as obtaining data about useful plants and animals, understanding how peoples manage their environments and learning about their lexicons and classifications. This is what we try to do in the best possible way, directly in the field from original sources. These results can then be organized in many ways once species determinations are completed. They may Basic quantitative and experimental ethnobotany includes basic documentation, quantitative evaluation of use and management and experimental assessment.

1985

I was kindly invited by the organizers of this Symposium to comment on the papers presented by the contributors, particularly from an ecological point of view. In attempting to do so, I did not restrict my commentaries to the purely ecological aspects, but tried also to express my viewpoints, as a scientist working in a country like Mexico, on the social and economic issues that form an indivisible part of the subject of the Symposium. All papers in the Symposium have pointed directly or indirectly to both the cultural and biological diversities that go hand in hand in all examples of plant utilization by human societies, across space and time. Such diversities are the result of the interplay among a given physical and biotic environment, a given set ofgenotypes that man recognizes as belonging to a species of useful or potentially useful plant, and man, a fundamentally energy-economic organism, surrounded by an intricate mesh of cultural attributes. This interplay is basically ecological in its nature, so much so that throughout human history-and currently for certain societies-one should consider culture to be an ecologically determined trait. When we speak of the interactions by which early societies developed domesticated plants, it is easy for us to think in terms of selection of the plant populations through domestication, and we implicitly accept many underlying ecological interactions in that process. What does not come so readily to mind is the fact that man also has been under the selective pressure of ecological-energetic efficiency. Decisions, such as the seed selection, the right planting times, and the appropriate field management of his crop, had to focus on the prospect of a positive balance between his energy inputs and his crop's energy yields. Red figures in this balance usually meant famine, propensity for disease, reduced life expectancy, and reduced birth rates; in a word, the risk of his genotype being left out of the evolutionary game. What better school than this for man to learn his trade well and teach it to his progeny well! The long process of plant evolution under domestication and the resulting ctfltural evolution of human societies are the roots of the cultural and biological diversity that constitute the riches of the field of ethnobotany and for which examples were given in the Symposium by Efraim Hernfindez, Robert Bye, Anson Thompson, and Gary Nabhan. However, the impact of man upon his plants is not restricted to the relatively reduced number of present-day crops that constitute the bulk of human food sources, but may have had a very important expression