When Inter-Ethnic Botanical Borrowing Does Not Rely on Obvious Efficacy

Some questions from Western Amazonia

Bibliographic Data

ID2998917
AuthorsMarc Lenaerts (corresponding author)
Year2006
Volume4
Pages133
Publication date2006-12-31
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEthnobotany Research and Applications (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1547-3465 • E-ISSN: 1547-3465
PublisherIlia State University (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.17348/era.4.0.133-146
OpenAlexW2117142224
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited5

Inter-ethnic botanical borrowing is usually deemed to bebased on pragmatic efficiency. However, in the regionalsystem we discovered between several indigenous groupsfrom the Peruvian rainforest, the transfer of ethnomedicinalknowledge relies much more on relational factors thanon any kind of strictly therapeutic efficacy. This is clearlysubstantiated by a detailed comparison between objectiveethnobotanical measurements and indigenous selfassessmentsrecorded by anthropologists. Such alternativemotivations for ethnobotanical borrowing are probablynot so exceptional. They raise some questions about therepresentation of plant efficiency from an indigenous pointof view, and probably in some Western contexts too. Theyalso entail direct implications for development and cooperationpolicies

Amazon rainforest · Biology · Ethnic group · Ethnobotany · Ethnology · Geography · Indigenous · Medicinal plants · Rainforest · Sociology · Traditional knowledge · Anthropology · Biochemical Analysis and Sensing Techniques · Ethnobotanical and Medicinal Plants Studies · Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies · Ecology

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