{{Short description|Study of how living things are used by human cultures}} [[File:EthnoBiologists Logo.png|thumb|200px|right|Logo for the [http://www.ethnobiology.org/about/index.html Society of Ethnobiology]]]
'''Ethnobiology''' is the multidisciplinary field of study of relationships among peoples, biota, and environments integrating many perspectives, from the social, biological, and medical sciences; along with application to conservation and sustainable development. The diversity of perspectives in ethnobiology allows for examining complex, dynamic interactions between human and natural systems.<ref name="Society">{{Cite web| title = What is Ethnobiology?| work = Society of Ethnobiology| access-date = 2024-09-26| url = https://ethnobiology.org/about-ethnobiology/what-is-ethnobiology}}</ref>
==History== ===Beginnings (15th century–19th century)=== [[File:Wright–Molyneux Map.png|thumb|The Wright{{ndash}}Molyneux map of the world, showing the extent of English geographic knowledge {{c.|1600}}]]
Biologists have been interested in local biological knowledge since the time Europeans started colonising the world, from the 15th century onwards. Paul Sillitoe wrote that:<ref name="Sillitoe 2006">Sillitoe 2006.</ref>
{{blockquote|Europeans not only sought to understand the new regions they intruded into but also were on the look-out for resources that they might profitably exploit, engaging in practices that today we should consider tantamount to biopiracy. Many new crops ... entered into Europe during this period, such as the potato, tomato, pumpkin, maize, and tobacco.<ref name="Sillitoe 2006, p. 121">Sillitoe 2006, p. 121.</ref>}}
Local biological knowledge, collected and sampled over these early centuries significantly informed the early development of modern biology:<ref name="Sillitoe 2006"/> * during the 17th century, Georg Eberhard Rumphius benefited from local biological knowledge in producing his catalogue, ''"Herbarium Amboinense"'', covering more than 1,200 species of the plants in Indonesia; * during the 18th century, Carl Linnaeus relied upon Rumphius's work, and also corresponded with other people all around the world when developing the biological classification scheme that now underlies the arrangement of much of the accumulated knowledge of the biological sciences. * during the 19th century, Charles Darwin, the 'father' of evolutionary theory, on his Voyage of the Beagle took interest in the local biological knowledge of peoples he encountered.{{Citation needed|date=February 2024}}
===Phase I (1900s–1940s)=== Ethnobiology itself, as a distinctive practice, only emerged during the 20th century as part of the records then being made about other peoples, and other cultures. As a practice, it was nearly always ancillary to other pursuits when documenting others' languages, folklore, and natural resource use. Roy Ellen commented that:
{{blockquote|At its earliest and most rudimentary, this comprised listing the names and uses of plants and animals in native non-Western or 'traditional' populations often in the context of salvage ethnography ...[ie] ''ethno''-biology as the descriptive biological knowledge of 'primitive' peoples.<ref name="ELLE2006">Ellen, Roy (2006)</ref>}}
This 'first phase' in the development of ethnobiology as a practice has been described as still having an essentially utilitarian purpose, often focusing on identifying those 'native' plants, animals and technologies of some potential use and value within increasingly dominant western economic systems<ref name="ELLE2006"/><ref>Examples of studies from this 'first' phase in the development of ethnobiology include Stevenson (1915), Castetter (1944) and Harrington (1947)</ref>
===Phase II (1950s–1970s)=== Arising out of practices in Phase I (above) came a 'second phase' in the development of 'ethnobiology', with researchers now striving to better document and better understand how other peoples' themselves "conceptualize and categorize" the natural world around them.<ref name="ELLE2006"/> In Sillitoe's words:
{{blockquote|By the mid-20th century ... utilitarian-focussed studies started to give way to more cognitively framed ones, notably studies that centred on elucidating classificatory schemes.<ref name="Sillitoe 2006, p. 121">Sillitoe 2006, p. 121.</ref>}}
[[File:Tawbuid men.jpg|thumb|230px|right|Some Mangyan (who count the Hanunóo among their members) men, on Mindoro island, Philippines, where Harold Conklin did his ethnobiological work]]
This 'second' phase is marked:<ref name="ELLE2006"/> * in Northern America (mid 1950s) with Harold Conklin's completing his doctorate entitled ''"The relation of Hanunóo [https://web.archive.org/web/20080213135409/http://www.mangyan.org/tribal/index.html#hanunoo] culture to the plant world"''<ref>Conklin, H.C. (1954)</ref> * in Britain (mid 1960s) with the publication of Claude Lévi-Strauss' book ''The Savage Mind''<ref>Lévi-Strauss, Claude (1966)</ref> legitimating "folk biological classification" as a worthy cross-cultural research endeavour * in France (mid 1970s) with André-Georges Haudricourt's linguistic studies of botanical nomenclature<ref>Haudricourt, Andre-Georges (1973)</ref> and R. Porteres' and others work in economic biology.<ref>Porteres, R. (1977)</ref>
===Present (1980s–2000s)=== By the turn of the 21st century, ethnobiological practices, research, and findings have had a significant impact and influence across a number of fields of biological inquiry including ecology,<ref>for instances of ethnobiology's influence on ecology, see Balée (1998); Plotkin (1995); Schultes & von Reis (1995)</ref> conservation biology,<ref>{{cite journal |last1=O'Neill |first1=Alexander |display-authors=etal |date=2017-03-29 |title=Integrating ethnobiological knowledge into biodiversity conservation in the Eastern Himalayas |journal=Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine |volume=13 |issue=21 |article-number=21 |doi=10.1186/s13002-017-0148-9 |pmc=5372287 |pmid=28356115 |doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>for instances of ethnobiology's influence on conservation biology see Cunningham (2001); Johannes (1989); Laird (2002); Tuxill & Nabhan (2001)</ref> development studies,<ref>for an instancing of ethnobiology's influence on development studies, see Warren, Slikkerveer & Brokensha (1995)</ref> and political ecology.<ref>for an instancing of ethnobiology's influence on political ecology see Zerner (2000)</ref>
The Society of Ethnobiology advises on its web page:
<blockquote> Ethnobiology is a rapidly growing field of research, gaining professional, student, and public interest ... internationally </blockquote>
Ethnobiology has come out from its place as an ancillary practice in the shadows of other core pursuits, to arise as a whole field of inquiry and research in its own right: taught within many tertiary institutions and educational programs around the world;<ref name="ELLE2006"/> with its own methods manuals,<ref>Ethnbiology methods manuals include Alexiades (1996) and Martin (1995)</ref> its own readers,<ref>one Ethnobiology reader is Minnis (2000)</ref> and its own textbooks<ref>one Ethnobiology textbook is Cotton (1996)</ref>
==Subjects of inquiry== ===Usage=== All societies make use of the biological world in which they are situated, but there are wide differences in use, informed by perceived need, available technology, and the culture's sense of morality and sustainability.{{Citation needed|date=April 2008}} Ethnobiologists investigate what lifeforms are used for what purposes, the particular techniques of use, the reasons for these choices, and symbolic and spiritual implications of them.
===Taxonomy=== Different societies divide the living world up in different ways. Ethnobiologists attempt to record the words used in particular cultures for living things, from the most specific terms (analogous to species names in Linnean biology) to more general terms (such as 'tree' and even more generally 'plant'). They also try to understand the overall structure or hierarchy of the classification system (if there is one; there is ongoing debate as to whether there must always be an implied hierarchy.<ref>Ellen, Roy (1993) pages 216 forward</ref>
===Cosmological, moral and spiritual significance=== Societies invest themselves and their world with meaning partly through their answers to questions like "how did the world happen?", "how and why did people come to be?", "what are proper practices, and why?", and "what realities exist beyond or behind our physical experience?" Understanding these elements of a societies' perspective is important to cultural research in general, and ethnobiologists investigate how a societies' view of the natural world informs and is informed by them.
===Traditional ecological knowledge=== In order to live effectively in a given place, a people needs to understand the particulars of their environment, and many traditional societies have complex and subtle understandings of the places in which they live.{{Citation needed|date=April 2008}} Ethnobiologists seek to share in these understandings, subject to ethical concerns regarding intellectual property and cultural appropriation.
===Cross-cultural ethnobiology=== In cross cultural ethnobiology research, two or more communities participate simultaneously. This enables the researcher to compare how a bio-resource is used by different communities.<ref>Franco, F.M. and Narasimhan, D. (2012). ''Ethnobotany of the Kondh, Poraja, Gadaba and Bonda of the Koraput region of Odisha, India''. D.K. Printworld, New Delhi</ref>
==Subdisciplines== ===Ethnobotany=== {{main|Ethnobotany}}
Ethnobotany investigates the relationship between human societies and plants: how humans use plants – as food, technology, medicine, and in ritual contexts; how they view and understand them; and their symbolic and spiritual role in a culture.
===Ethnozoology=== {{main|Ethnozoology}} {{further|Birds in culture|Insects in culture}}
The subfield ethnozoology focuses on the relationship between humans and other animals throughout human history. It studies human practices such as hunting, fishing and animal husbandry in space and time, and human perspectives about animals such as their place in the moral and spiritual realms.{{Citation needed|date=April 2008}}
===Ethnoecology=== {{main|Ethnoecology}}
Ethnoecology refers to an increasingly dominant 'ethnobiological' research paradigm focused, primarily, on documenting, describing, and understanding how other peoples perceive, manage, and use whole ecosystems.
==Other disciplines== Studies and writings within ethnobiology draw upon research from fields including archaeology, geography, linguistics, systematics, population biology, ecology, cultural anthropology, ethnography, pharmacology, nutrition, conservation, and sustainable development.<ref name="Society"/>
==Ethics== Through much of the history of ethnobiology, its practitioners were primarily from dominant cultures, and the benefit of their work often accrued to the dominant culture, with little control or benefit invested in the indigenous peoples whose practice and knowledge they recorded.
Just as many of those indigenous societies work to assert legitimate control over physical resources such as traditional lands or artistic and ritual objects, many work to assert legitimate control over their intellectual property.
In an age when the potential exists for large profits from the discovery of, for example, new food crops or medicinal plants, modern ethnobiologists must consider intellectual property rights, the need for informed consent, the potential for harm to informants, and their "debt to the societies in which they work".<ref>[http://www.aaanet.org/committees/ethics/ethcode.htm Code of Ethics of the American Anthropological Association, section A]{{Dead link|date=March 2026 |bot=InternetArchiveBot }}</ref>
Furthermore, these questions must be considered not only in light of western industrialized nations' common understanding of ethics and law, but also in light of the ethical and legal standards of the societies from which the ethnobiologist draws information.<ref>Dodson (2007)</ref>
== See also == {{div col|colwidth=22em}}
* Anthropology * Biocultural diversity * Cultural landscapes * Darrell A. Posey * Declaration of Belém * Ethnobotany * Ethnoecology * Human interactions with insects * Ethnoichthyology * Ethnomedicine * Ethnomycology * Hawaiian Ethnobiology * Indigenous intellectual property * Historical ecology * Traditional knowledge {{div col end}}
==Footnotes== {{reflist|2}}
==References== * ALEXIADES, M.N. (1996) ''Selected guidelines for ethnobotanical research: a field manual.'' The New York Botanical Garden. New York. * BALLEE, W (1998) (ed.) ''Advances in historical ecology.'' New York: Columbia University Press. * BERLIN, Brent (1992) ''Ethnobiological Classification - Principles of Categorization of Plants and Animals in Traditional Societies''. Princeton University Press, 1992. * CASTETTER, E.F. (1944) "The domain of ethnobiology". ''The American Naturalist''. Volume 78. Number 774. Pages 158–170. * CONKLIN, H.C. (1954) ''The relation of Hanunóo culture to the plant world.'' PhD dissertation, Yale University. * COTTON, C.M. (1996) ''Ethnobotany: principles and applications.'' John Wiley. London. * CUNNINGHAM, A.B. (2001) ''Applied ethnobotany: people, wild plant use and conservation.'' Earthscan. London * D'AMBROSIO, U. (2014). Theoretical reflections on ethnobiology in the third millennium. Contributions to Science, 10: 49–64. * {{cite web | last = DODSON | first = Michael | year = 2007 | url = https://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/documents/6_session_dodson.pdf | title = Report of the Secretariat on Indigenous traditional knowledge | work = Report to the United Nations Economic and Social Council's Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, Sixth Session, New York, 14–25 May | publisher = United Nations Economic and Social Council. New York | access-date = 2007-11-28}} * ELLEN, Roy (1993) ''The Cultural Relations of Classification, an Analysis of Nuaulu Animal Categories from Central Seram.'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. * {{cite web | last = ELLEN | first = Roy | year = 2006 | url = http://www.kent.ac.uk/anthropology/files/jrai_270.pdf | title = Introduction | work = Special Edition of the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. S1-S22 | access-date = 2008-04-21 | author-link = Roy Ellen }}{{dead link|date=January 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} * HARRINGTON, J.P (1947) "Ethnobiology". ''Acta Americana''. Number 5. Pages 244–247 * HAUDRICOURT, Andre-Georges (1973) "Botanical nomenclature and its translation." In M. Teich & R Young (Eds) ''Changing perspectives in the history of science: Essays in honour of Joseph Needham'' Heinemann. London. Pages 265–273. * {{cite journal | last=Hunn | first=Eugene | title=Ethnobiology in Four Phases | journal=Journal of Ethnobiology | volume=27 | issue=1 | year=2007 | issn=0278-0771 | doi=10.2993/0278-0771(2007)27[1:EIFP]2.0.CO;2 | pages=1–10 | s2cid=26309207 | doi-access=free }} * JOHANNES, R.E (Ed)(1989) ''Traditional ecological knowledge.'' IUCN, The World Conservation Union. Cambridge * LAIRD, S.A. (Ed) (2002) ''Biodiversity and traditional knowledge: equitable partnerships in practice.'' Earthscan. London. * LEVI-STRAUSS, Claude (1966). ''The savage mind.'' Weidenfeld & Nicolson. London. * MARTIN, G.J (1995) ''Ethnobotany: a methods manual.'' Chapman & Hall. London. * MINNIS, P (Ed) (2000) ''Ethnobotany: a reader.'' University of Oklahoma Press. Norman. * PLOTKIN, M.J (1995) "The importance of ethnobotany for tropical forest conservation." in R.E. Schultes & Siri von Reis (Eds) ''Ethnobotany: evolution of a discipline'' (eds) Chapman & Hall. London. Pages 147–156. * PORTERES, R. (1977)."Ethnobotanique." ''Encyclopaedia Universalis Organum'' Number 17. Pages 326–330. * POSEY, D.A & W. L. Overal (Eds.), 1990) ''Ethnobiology: Implications and Applications''. Proceedings of the First International Congress of Ethnobiology. Belém: Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi. * POSEY, D. A. (Ed.), (1999) ''Cultural and Spiritual Values of Biodiversity''. London: United Nations Environmental Programme & Intermediate Technology Publications. * SCHULTES, R.E. & VON REIS, S (1995) (Eds) ''Ethnobotany: evolution of a discipline'' (eds) Chapman & Hall. London. Part 6. * SILLITOE, Paul (2006) "Ethnobiology and applied anthropology: rapprochement of the academic with the practical". Special Edition of the ''Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute'' S119-S142 * STEVENSON, M.C. (1914) "Ethnobotany of the Zuni Indians." '' Bureau of American Ethnology Annual Report.'' Volume 30. Number 31102, Government Printing Office. Washington, D.C. * TUXILL, J & NABHAN, G.P (2001) ''People, plants and protected area.'' Earthscan. London. * WARREN, D.M; SLIKKERVEER, L; & BROKENSHA, D. (Eds) (1995) ''The cultural dimension of development: indigenous knowledge systems.'' Intermediate Technology Publications. London. * ZERNER, C (Ed) (2000) ''People, plants and justice: the politics of nature conservation.'' Columbia University Press. New York.
==External links== {{Commons category}} *[http://www.biology-online.org/kb/biology_articles/ethnobiology.html Biology on-line "Ethnobiology" articles] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090924051102/http://www.biology-online.org/kb/biology_articles/ethnobiology.html |date=2009-09-24 }} *[http://www.athabascau.ca/courses/anth/491/resources.htm Ethnobiology — Traditional Biological Knowledge in Contemporary Global Context. (Athabasca University Course Resource List)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303183104/http://www.athabascau.ca/courses/anth/491/resources.htm |date=2016-03-03 }} *[http://www.ethnobiology.net/ International Society of Ethnobiology] *[http://ethnobiology.org/publications/journal Journal of Ethnobiology] *[http://www.ethnobiomed.com/ Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine] *[http://ethnobiology.org Society of Ethnobiology] *[https://tsammalex.clld.org/ Tsammalex: A lexical database on plants and animals] *[https://huntergatherer.la.utexas.edu/lexical Languages of hunter-gatherers and their neighbors]: contains many flora and fauna names in languages spoken by hunter-gatherers and their neighbors.
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Category:Ethnobiology Category:Ethnology Category:Anthropology Category:Branches of biology Category:Traditional knowledge