云南高黎贡山怒族对植物传统利用的初步研究

采用民族生物学和文化人类学等方法,广泛调查和研究了云南西北部高黎贡山地区怒族对植物的传统利用形式。结果表明：怒族对植物的传统利用主要表现在食用、药用、观赏、宗教祟拜和文化利用等方面。讨论了怒族的传统文化在当地植物多样性利用和管理中的作用和意义,并探讨了在植物多样性管理中传统管理和现代管理之间的关系以及在我国利用文化多样性进行自然生态环境保护的可能性、必要性和可行性。此外,面对优秀的传统文化知识和文化多样性逐渐消失的现实,作者建议加以拯救和广泛的研究。     

Language revitalization in Native North America--issues of intellectual property rights and intellectual sovereignty

Language revitalization, oral tradition and epistemology are expressions of Native peoples intellectual sovereignty, and thus the foundation for indigenous intellectual property rights. As the people of California move towards language and cultural revitalization the question arises: What constitutes or constructs the definitions of intellectual property and how can appropriation of indigenous knowledge be protected? Looking at the issues faced by the California's indigenous populace and by implication, other indigenous peoples in the United States, this essay examines how protection may be afforded under the United Nations definition of 'heritage'. Given that the holding safe of a 'culture' or 'heritage' is inclusive of language, and thus has been determined to be a human right.     

云南紫溪山彝族传统文化对生物多样性的影响

采用民族生物学和文化人类学的方法,对云南高原中部紫溪山地区的彝族传统文化和生物多样性进行了调查和研究。结果表明：紫溪山丰富的生物多样性受惠于彝族传统文化,当地彝族图腾文化对紫溪山的森林生态系统、生物物种、遗传资源的保护都起着十分重要的作用。面对优良传统文化和传统知识正在逐渐消失的现实,作者建议加以拯救和广泛的研究。     

Anthropologists only need apply: challenges of applied anthropology

The application of anthropology is attracting increasing attention, where once it was thought at best a dubious enterprise. The resurgence of applied anthropology reflects the discipline's broad spread, with persons seeking applications in an array of areas. In this article I reflect on some contentious issues that I have encountered in trying to take up the challenge of applying anthropology, notably in the context of 'indigenous knowledge' in development inquiries, issues that demand attention to take this work forwards. A brief historical review suggests that a failure to deal with these arguably hindered previous attempts to establish an applied anthropology. They include definition of the subject we seek to apply, the implications of interdisciplinarity for the social sciences, and the matter of expert status. Other considerations concern giving ethnographic methods an applicable edge, engaging, for example, with the challenging demands of participatory research. I outline five ways to envisage applying anthropology: facilitating others' exploitation of exogenous know-how; using knowledge of local understanding to further development; transferring people's learning and practices cross-culturally; seeking ways to assist market use of knowledge; and finally radical ethno-criticism of development. They all present us with challenges. And signal interesting times for anthropology.     

Coppice Harvesting of Fuelwood Species on a South African Common: Utilizing Scientific and Indigenous Knowledge in Community Based Natural Resource Management

The limitations of Community Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) with respect to the difficulties of comparing local versus scientific knowledge categories within a bounded definition of ‘community’ were investigated by means of a study exploring local indigenous knowledge pertaining to harvesting technique, and the impact of soil and species type on the post-harvest coppice response of popular savanna fuelwood species, among rural inhabitants of the Bushbuckridge region of the Limpopo Province, South Africa. Soils and plants were evaluated chiefly in terms of their perceived ability to retain precipitation, making rainfall a driving force in local understanding of environmental productivity. Some indigenous knowledge showed an agreement with biological data, but overall the variability in responses, as well as the diverse scales at which indigenous and scientific knowledge is directed, were too great to allow for simplistic parallels between local ecological indices to be made. Indigenous environmental knowledge was underscored by the perceived symbolic link between environmental and social degradation. It is recommended that environmental managers incorporate indigenous knowledge as a component of a systems-level approach to natural resource management, where biological, cultural, economic, and symbolic aspects of natural resource use are nested within a broader ecosocial system. This approach to indigenous knowledge is offered as an alternative to the simple scientific evaluation that so often characterizes environmental management.     

The Same,but Different: Indigenous Knowledge Retention,Erosion, and Innovation in the Brazilian Amazon

This study explores how indigenous knowledge (IK) might be retained and/or changed among contemporary indigenous peoples. Through semi-structured interviews and quantitative analyses of long-term changes in artistic knowledge among three geographically displaced Kaiabi (Kawaiwete) we found an association between language proficiency and gender with greater IK retention, and formal schooling with IK erosion. Six mechanisms of innovation in knowledge of basketry and textiles among men and women were documented. A mixed mode of collaborative learning and knowledge transmission involving diverse actors emerged from community workshops and group forums. Innovative mechanisms for cultural transmission have taken advantage of media, technology, and non-indigenous support organizations to expand weaving knowledge of basketry designs. Our results illustrate how indigenous peoples actively shape cultural transmission and change, as well as the role that public policies and academic research may play in these processes.     

Indigenous knowledge of dye-yielding plants among Bai communities in Dali,Northwest Yunnan,China

Background

Bai people in the Dali Prefecture of Northwest Yunnan, China, have a long history of using plant extracts to dye their traditional costumes and maintain this culture for posterity. However, the development of modern technology, while vastly improving the dyeing efficiency, is also replacing indigenous knowledge which threatens the indigenous practice, causing the latter disappearing gradually. This study sought to examine the indigenous knowledge of plants used for textile dyeing in Bai communities, so as to provide a foundation for their sustainable development.

Methods

We conducted a semi-structured interview among 344 informants (above age 36) selected through a snowball sampling method. Free lists and participant observation were used as supplementary methods for the interviews. Three quantitative indicators (informant consensus factor [ICF], use frequency, and cultural importance index [CI]) were used to evaluate the indigenous knowledge of the dye-yielding plants.

Results

Twenty-three species belonging to 19 plant taxonomic families were used for dye by Bai communities. We summarized them into four life forms, eight used parts, five colors, three processing methods, and four dyeing methods. Among them, Strobilanthes cusia (Nees) O. Kuntze was the most traditional dyeing plant and has an important cultural value. Location, age, and gender were found to have a significant effect on indigenous knowledge, and the dyeing knowledge was dynamic and influenced by social factors.

Conclusions

Diverse plant resources and rich indigenous knowledge of textile dyeing persist at settlements of Bai communities in Dali Prefecture. However, high labor costs and thinning market of traditional products that use plant dye cause repulsion toward traditional practice. To that, a good income in other profession attracts indigenous people to shift from their tradition of making plant-based dye and associated cultural systems at risk of extinction. More research for market development for products that use plant-based dye is necessary for the conservation of this valuable knowledge and biodiversity protection in Bai communities.

     

Are Glaciers ‘Good to Think With’? Recognising Indigenous Environmental Knowledge 1

Lively debates in arctic and subarctic communities centre on potential contributions of indigenous knowledge to environmental sciences. Some scientists are now attempting to integrate traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) into existing knowledge frameworks as data. Anthropologists working with oral tradition propose an alternative approach. They reason that greater knowledge value, especially the possibility of surprises, may come from unfamiliar oral accounts that do not seem to fit easily within conventional frameworks. This paper builds on accounts I first heard from senior indigenous women in north-western North America about unorthodox behaviour of glaciers. These glaciers were depicted as sentient, wilful beings that responded directly and sometimes dramatically to human behaviour, often with devastating results. Similar themes are documented in colonial records where such ideas were discounted as ‘superstition’. Oral traditions, though, do not provide straightforward data for contemporary sciences. As practices such as oral storytelling now become recognised as knowledge and translated in new contexts, concepts like indigenous knowledge travel and accumulate meanings. Surging glaciers disrupt conceptual fields. Stories about them may prove good to ‘think with’ as we consider challenges of gathering diverse practices into the ubiquitous but narrowly framed category, knowledge.     

Biodiversity Governance: A Tower of Babel of Scales and Cultures

The recently created Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), originally focused on multilateral and global issues, is shifting its focus to address local issues and to include in its assessments local stakeholders and indigenous and traditional systems of knowledge. Acknowledging that full biodiversity governance is unavoidably rooted in participation of local actors and their problems and knowledge, we suggest that to deal successfully with the complexity and diversity of local issues, including indigenous knowledge systems, IPBES must recognize a key role of local institutions.     

Introduction

This introduction to the volume argues for the central and integrating role of the subject matter of ethnobiological research in anthropology understood in its widest sense: in its biological, archaeo-historical, and socio-cultural dimensions. The background and current status of ethnobiology are assessed, and its contribution to anthropological issues considered under the following headings: the foundational paradigm of taxonomic orthodoxy; language and the translation of knowledge systems; cognition and culture; the social organization and transmission of knowledge; medical ethnobiology; the applied practice of ethnobiology; and – the meta-theory which binds all this together – the co-evolutionary paradigm as part of a wider 'biocultural synthesis'. The way in which the collected papers exemplify these themes is discussed.     

Collaborative research and intellectual property rights

Scientists find themselves working more and more with indigenous, traditional and local communities in all aspects of their collections and investigations. Indigenous knowledge has become increasingly important in research while at the same time local communities have become increasingly politicized in the use, misappropriation, and commercialisation of their knowledge and biogenetic resources. It is becoming more and more difficult for even the most well-intentioned scientists to stride into indigenous areas and collect plants, animals, folk tales, and photos without having first to convince local leaders that the scholarly efforts will somehow benefit the communities — that the benefits of research results will directly and indirectly lead to strengthening the traditional society. In many parts of the world, indigenous peoples only allow Collaborative Research in which the scientific priorities and agendas are controlled by the communities, or Community Controlled Research in which the communities actually contract scientists to carry out the group's research plan. Control over data has become one of the key battle cries for the indigenous movement, that is now demanding Intellectual Property Rights over information obtained through research and just compensation for economic benefits that eventually may accrue. This paper deals with some of the ethical and practical issues that frame this rapidly evolving debate.     

Clean and Green: Indigenous Knowledge and Cultural Models in a Philippine Community

This article demonstrates how the study of indigenous knowledge can be enhanced by paying attention to the forms in which this knowledge is organized and the way it is embedded in a wider cultural matrix. The empirical setting is a community of small-scale farmers on the Philippine island of Bohol, where much agricultural knowledge is organized in a cultural model built around a concept of cleanliness. The main part of the article is concerned with analyzing this symbolic model of cleanliness. I examine how it is applied within agriculture as well as in other domains; its esthetic, moral and practical dimensions; and how it can be said to embody a particular vision of the nature-culture opposition. In conclusion, I suggest that the cultural models approach may also facilitate the analysis of how indigenous knowledge changes over time.     

A unified framework for the restoration of Southeast Asian mangroves—bridging ecology, society and economics

The effect of intensive human intervention, poor socio-economic conditions and little knowledge on mangrove ecology pose enormous challenges for mangrove restoration in Southeast Asia. We present a framework for tropical mangrove restoration. Our proposed restoration framework addresses the ecology, economy and social issues simultaneously by considering the causes of mangrove degradation. We provide a step by step guideline for its restoration. We argue that although, ecological issues are of prime importance, economic and social issues must be considered in the restoration plan in order for it to be successful. Since mangrove ecology is not adequately studied in this region, local ecological knowledge can be used to fill the baseline information gaps. Unwanted human disturbance can be minimized by encouraging community participation. This can be ensured and sustained by facilitating the livelihood of the coastal community. We translated the restoration paradigm into a readily available practical guideline for the executors of the plans. We provide an example of mangrove restoration project that is closely related to our proposed framework. We are optimistic that this framework has the potential for universal application with necessary adjustments.     

“Now he walks and walks, as if he didn’t have a home where he could eat”: Food, Healing, and Hunger in Quechua Narratives of Madness

In the Quechua-speaking peasant communities of southern Peru, mental disorder is understood less as individualized pathology and more as a disturbance in family and social relationships. For many Andeans, food and feeding are ontologically fundamental to such relationships. This paper uses data from interviews and participant observation in a rural province of Cuzco to explore the significance of food and hunger in local discussions of madness. Carers’ narratives, explanatory models, and theories of healing all draw heavily from idioms of food sharing and consumption in making sense of affliction, and these concepts structure understandings of madness that differ significantly from those assumed by formal mental health services. Greater awareness of the salience of these themes could strengthen the input of psychiatric and psychological care with this population and enhance knowledge of the alternative treatments that they use. Moreover, this case provides lessons for the global mental health movement on the importance of openness to the ways in which indigenous cultures may construct health, madness, and sociality. Such local meanings should be considered by mental health workers delivering services in order to provide care that can adjust to the alternative ontologies of sufferers and carers.     

文化景观视角下的历史性城市景观

历史性城市景观是遗产保护领域近十几年来提出的新概念,关于其学术意义的讨论也层出不穷。从文化景观所蕴含的时空过程的学术视角着眼,分别梳理了文化景观的学术脉络与遗产领域中的文化景观和历史性城市景观的实践发展历程,指出历史性城市景观并没有超出文化景观的学术范畴,而遗产领域当前面临的很多问题都与对文化景观学术内涵的认知缺陷有关。只有充分借鉴和吸收文化景观的学术成果,才能真正有效地应对世界遗产实践过程中复杂变化的人地关系等挑战。     

Who Detects Ecological Change After Catastrophic Events? Indigenous Knowledge,Social Networks,and Situated Practices

Detecting ecological change is a critical first step in the process of local-level adaptation, yet few studies have explored the factors that predict knowledge acquisition following catastrophic events. This article empirically assesses individual variation in the ability of Solomon Islanders to detect ecological change following the alteration of local, shallow-water, marine environments by a major tsunami. We compare the results of marine science surveys with local ecological knowledge of the benthos. We also examine multiple socioeconomic variables, and employ social network analysis to measure the influence of social and expert networks. Results show that villagers with salaried work who are at the intersection of local and global knowledge were the most adept at detecting tsunami-induced changes to benthic surfaces. Social networks had no statistically significant influence on villagers’ abilities to detect change. We argue that these results counter common conceptualizations of indigenous knowledge that emphasize its normative, shared, inter-generationally transmitted characteristics rather than its heterogeneity, emergence, and practical application. Our findings have implications for theory about the foundations of indigenous knowledge research and the design of disaster mitigation efforts or resource management programs that incorporate indigenous ecological knowledge.