Brief introduction to evolutionary ethnobiology

ALBUQUERQUE, ULYSSES PAULINO; ANDRE LUIZ BORBA NASCIMENTO; ERNANI MACHADO DE FREITAS LINS NETO; SANTORO, FLÁVIA ROSA; GUSTAVO TABOADA SOLDATI; JOELSON MORENO BRITO DE MOURA; MICHELLE CRISTINE MEDEIROS JACOB; MEDEIROS, PATRÍCIA MUNIZ DE; PAULO HENRIQUE SANTOS GONÇALVES; RISONEIDE HENRIQUES DA SILVA; FERREIRA JÚNIOR, WASHINGTON SOARES

Nupeea

Lugar: Recife; Año: 2022 p. 58

978-65-88020-11-1

Ethnobiology has developed over the last 30 years, particularly from a theoretical standpoint, advancing our understanding of the relationships between human groups and biota. Additionally, it has contributed to practical decisions related to biocultural conservation. Ethnobiology is an interdisciplinary field that investigates the complex relationships between people and the biota; there are a number of proposals for conceptual and theoretical organization that can guide investigations and advances in this field. This organization must be performed with the understanding that ethnobiological studies can be based on theoretical and methodological guidelines from different disciplines that are typically not considered as interrelated. A proposal for a conceptual organization was finally published and is thus available for review by the scientific community (see proposal in Albuquerque et al. 2020b).Recently, a new branch of ethnobiology has been proposed, called evolutionary ethnobiology (EE), which utilizes theoretical concepts of ecology and evolution to investigate the historical and contemporary factors that influence human knowledge and practices associated with the biota. EE has contributed conceptually and theoretically by employing ecological and evolutionary scenarios to study the dynamic relationships between human groups and their environments. It has helped to assess, for example, the extent to which the human species has changed environments and how the environment (and environmental modifications) has affected our species, both spatially and temporally. In this book (the offspring of the first online EE course, December 2020), we have briefly explained the concept of EE using a series of chapters that highlight some key definitions and concepts in EE, in addition to the ecological and evolutionary bases of relationships between human groups and their environments. Considering that recent publications have approached EE in a superficial and sometimes errant manner (see Pierotti 2020; Villagómez-Resendiz 2020), we hope that this book allows for an understanding of this important approach, which can help in unraveling the complexity of social-ecological systems, particularly for researchers who feel more aligned with ecology and evolution. To point out one of the misconceptions regarding EE, Villagómez-Resendiz (2020) introduces: “In the same vein as Mexican ethnobiology, we address two main branches within Brazilian ethnobiology: evolutionary ethnobiology and ethnoecology” (p. 3). This sentence suggests a misinterpretation of the complex reality of Brazilian ethnobiology, reducing it to two main branches. An incomplete understanding of this complexity is highlighted in the following sentence, in which the author criticizes EE for its lack of alignment with ethnography and anthropology: “ Thus, inasmuch as evolutionary ethnobiology does not develop deeper ethnographies in accordance to proper anthropological methods, its epistemic strategies will only accomplish a weak integration between biology and anthropology” (p. 4). EE is structured from other theoretical, epistemological, and methodological references. It does not exclude the dialog and involvement of other approaches, with different theoretical orientations, in the larger field of ethnobiology. EE merely uses another lens to look at our relationship with nature and does not prevent others from doing the same through their own disciplinary lens.