Ethnobiology 5: Interdisciplinarity in an Era of Rapid Environmental Change
Abstract
Ethnobiology 5 stems from Eugene Hunn’s four phases of the history of ethnobiology and focuses on the relevance of ethnobiological research in the context of environmental and cultural change. It refers to a contemporary phase of the field’s historical development. In this paper, I argue that ethnobiology is preadapted to be a scholarly umbrella for a number of disciplines that concern human-environment interactions, suggesting that one goal of Ethnobiology 5 is to bridge traditional academic boundaries in order to broaden the community of ethnobiologists. Another goal of Ethnobiology 5 is to capitalize on and communicate the relevance of ethnobiological scholarship for solving problems related to contemporary environmental and cultural crises. Indeed, ethnobiology is not a subfield of any traditional discipline and by the nature of its name bridges humanities, social science, and science. Ethnobiology has always been interdisciplinary in terms of its subject matter, yet its community of scholars is relatively small compared to mission-driven disciplines, such as conservation biology. Venues for publication and presentation of ethnobiological research, as well as how ethnobiologists portray their research, are critical to growing ethnobiology.
References
Albuquerque, U. P. and P. M. Medeiros. 2012. Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis Applied to Ethnobiological Research. Ethnobiology and Conservation 1:6.
Anderson, E. N. 2010. The Pursuit of Ecotopia: Lessons from Indigenous and Traditional Societies for the Human Ecology of Our Modern World. Praeger Press, Santa Barbara, CA.
Anderson, E. N. 2011. Ethnobiology: Overview of a Growing Field. In Ethnobiology, edited by E. N. Anderson, D. M. Pearsall, E. S. Hunn, and N. J. Turner, pp. 1-14. Wiley-Blackwell, Hoboken, NJ.
Anderson, E. N., D. M. Pearsall, E. S. Hunn, and N. J. Turner, eds. 2011. Ethnobiology. Wiley-Blackwell, Hoboken, NJ.
Ball, S. J. and C. Lacey. 1980. Subject Disciplines as the Opportunity for Group Action: A Measured Critique of Subject Sub-cultures. In Teacher Strategies: Explorations in the Sociology of the School, edited by P. Wood, pp. 149-177. Routledge, New York.
Baserra de Farias, G., A. G. C. Alves, and J. Geraldo. 2010. Mythological Relations between the “Lavandeira” Birds Fluvicola nengeta and Motacilla alba in Northeast Brazil and Northwest Spain: Possible Cultural Implications for Conservation. Journal of Ethnobiology 30:240-251.
Borgmann, A. 2000. The Transparency and Contingency of the Earth. In Earth Matters: The Earth Sciences, Philosophy, and the Claims of Community, edited by R. Frodeman, pp. 99-106. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ.
Ford, R. I. 2011. History of Ethnobiology. In Ethnobiology, edited by E. N. Anderson, D. M. Pearsall, E. S. Hunn, and N. J. Turner, pp. 15-26. Wiley-Blackwell, Hoboken, NJ.
Frankel, O. H., and M. E. Soulé. 1981. Conservation and Evolution. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.
Gilmore, M. P. and J. C. Young. 2012. The Use of Participatory Mapping in Ethnobiological Research, Biocultural Conservation, and Community Empowerment: A Case Study from the Peruvian Amazon. Journal of Ethnobiology 32:6-29.
Hunn, E. 2007. Ethnobiology in Four Phases. Journal of Ethnobiology 27:1-10.
Lepofsky, D. 2009. The Past, Present, and Future of Traditional Resource and Environmental Management. Journal of Ethnobiology 29:161-166.
Lindenmayer, D., and M. Hunter. 2010. Some Guiding Concepts for Conservation Biology. Conservation Biology 24:1459-1468.
Maffi, L. 2001. Introduction: On the Interdependence of Biological and Cultural Diversity. In On Biocultural Diversity: Linking Language, Knowledge, and the Environment, edited by L. Maffi, pp. 1-50. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC.
Meine, C., M. Soulé, and R. F. Noss. 2006. A Mission- Driven Discipline”: the Growth of Conservation Biology. Conservation Biology 20:631-651.
Müller, J., and I. Dan Guimbo. 2010. Letting Wood Rot: A Case Study on Local Perceptions of Global Conservation Initiatives (Boumba, Niger). Ethnobiology Letters 1:40-50.
Nabhan, G. P. 2009. Perspectives in Ethnobiology: Bridging Disciplines, Cultures and Species. Journal of Ethnobiology 29:3-7.
Nabhan, G. P., K. Chambers, D. Tecklin, E. Perramond, and T. E. Sheridan. 2011a. Ethnobiology for a Diverse World – Defining New Disciplinary Trajectories: Mixing Political Ecology with Ethnobiology. Journal of Ethnobiology 31:1-3.
Nabhan, G. P., F. Wyndham, and D. Lepofsky. 2011b. Ethnobiology for a Diverse World: Ethnobiology Emerging from a Time of Crisis. Journal of Ethnobiology 31:172-175.
Nabhan, G. P. and D. Martinez. 2012. Ethnobiology for a Diverse World – Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Endangered Species Recovery: Is Ethnobiology for the Birds? Journal of Ethnobiology 32:1-5.
Rozzi, R. 1999. The Reciprocal Links between Evolutionary-Ecological Sciences and Environmental Ethics. Bioscience 49:911-921.
Stepp, J. R., S. Cervone, H. Castaneda, A. Lasseter, G. Stocks, and Y. Gichon. 2004. Development of a GIS for Global Biocultural Diversity. Policy Matters 13:267-271.
Stepp, J. R., H. Castaneda, and S. Cervone. 2005. Mountains and Biocultural Diversity. Mountain Research and Development 25:223-227.
Wolverton, S., C. R. Randklev, and A. Barker. 2011. Ethnobiology as a Bridge between Science and Ethics: An Applied Paleozoological Perspective. In Ethnobiology, edited by E. N. Anderson, D. M. Pearsall, E. S. Hunn, and N. J. Turner, pp. 115-132. Wiley-Blackwell, Hoboken, NJ.
Wolverton, S. and R. L. Lyman. 2012. Introduction to Applied Zooarchaeology. In Conservation Biology and Applied Zooarchaeology, edited by S. Wolverton and R. L. Lyman, pp. 1-22. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.
Wyndham, F. S. 2009. Spheres of Relations, Lines of Interaction: Subtle Ecologies of the Rarámuri Landscape in Northern Mexico. Journal of Ethnobiology 29:271-295.
Wyndham, F. S., D. Lepofsky, and S. Tiffany. 2011. Taking Stock in Ethnobiology: Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? Journal of Ethnobiology 31:110-127.
Copyright (c) 2013 Ethnobiology Letters
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain ownership of the copyright for their content and grant Ethnobiology Letters (the “Journal”) and the Society of Ethnobiology right of first publication. Authors and the Journal agree that Ethnobiology Letters will publish the article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Public License (CC BY-NC 4.0), which permits others to use, distribute, and reproduce the work non-commercially, provided the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal are properly cited.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
For any reuse or redistribution of a work, users must make clear the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Public License (CC BY-NC 4.0).
In publishing with Ethnobiology Letters corresponding authors certify that they are authorized by their co-authors to enter into these arrangements. They warrant, on behalf of themselves and their co-authors, that the content is original, has not been formally published, is not under consideration, and does not infringe any existing copyright or any other third party rights. They further warrant that the material contains no matter that is scandalous, obscene, libelous, or otherwise contrary to the law.
Corresponding authors will be given an opportunity to read and correct edited proofs, but if they fail to return such corrections by the date set by the editors, production and publication may proceed without the authors’ approval of the edited proofs.
