Home ›

Ethnobiological News

  • 34th Annual Meeting, Columbus, OH, 4–7 May, 2011. "Historical and Archaeological Perspectives on Ethnobiology"
    2010/03/31 - 12:32pm

    The 34th Annual Meeting of the Society of Ethobiology “Historical and Archaeological Perspectives on Ethnobiology” will be held from May 4– May 7, 2011 in Columbus, Ohio. We welcome all papers that touch on relationships between humans and other organisms, both past and present. In keeping with the conference theme, we are particularly interested in soliciting presentations that address the following topics and approaches:

    • History and evolutionary significance of important ethnobiological patterns, such as plant and animal domestication, food processing, hunting, environmental management, and the use of animals and plants in ceremony, crafts, and traditional medicine
    • Application and integration of multiple lines of archaeological and paleoenvironmental evidence
    • Incorporation of ethnographic and documentary information into studies of past relationships between humans and culturally important animals and plants
    • Human paleoecology, including human impact on past environments
  • Call for Nominations -- Board Elections 2010
    2010/09/01 - 11:49am

    Society of Ethnobiology Elections: Call for Nominations

    The Society of Ethnobiology is accepting nominations for several Board positions for our November elections, to take office in May 2011. We especially seek people who are interested in promoting the field of Ethnobiology to diverse communities.

    Please email fowlerct@wofford.edu if you would like to nominate yourself or someone else for one of these positions.   See http://ethnobiology.org/about/structure for more detailed descriptions of the duties involved and http://ethnobiology.org/about/board for descriptions of the current Board.

    1. Vice President/President Elect. This is a two year term. After two years, the President-elect assumes the office of President and holds this office for two years. We are seeking someone with strong leadership skills and a vision for expanding the field of Ethnobiology.
    2. Treasurer. This important position is a three year term. We seek someone who will be responsible not only for managing the Society's funds, but also with creative ideas about how to use those funds to help grow the Society.
    3. Board of Trustee, Web Liaison. A three year term. We are looking for someone who wants to put creativity into making our web site the most engaging and compelling possible. You come up with the ideas, and we'll make it happen!
    4. Board of Trustee, Journal of Ethnobiology Liaison. A three year term. This person is responsible for working with the Journal of Ethnobiology editors to make our journal be the best it can be and to reach the widest audience. 

    The Society of Ethnobiology promotes the interdisciplinary study of the relationships of plants and animals with human cultures worldwide, including past and present relationships between peoples and the environment.

  • Highlights 2010 Board of Directors Meeting
    2010/08/30 - 3:17pm

    Click on the link below to download a PDF copy of "Highlights 2010 Board of Directors Meeting."

    highlights_board_of_directors_may_2010.pdf
  • New Radio Program Series on Ethnobiology and Our 2010 Conference
    2010/06/10 - 9:42am

    July 22 2010
    "EXPLORING ETHNOBIOLOGY II: NANCY TURNER"

    Web Link: http://www.cjly.net/deconstructingdinner/072210.htm
    Download Audio Link: http://media.libsyn.com/media/deconstructingdinner/DD072210.mp3
    Stream Audio Link: http://www.cjly.net/deconstructingdinner/audio/DD072210.m3u

    In May 2010, Deconstructing Dinner travelled to Vancouver Island where two international conferences on ethnobiology were being hosted. Ethnobiology examines the relationships between humans and their surrounding plants, animals and ecosystems. Today, more and more people are expressing an interest to develop closer relationships with the earth. This leaves much to be learned from the research of ethnobiologists, and in particular, from the symbiotic human-earth relationships that so many peoples around the world have long maintained.

    On this part II of the series, we listen to segments from a one-on-one interview with Nancy Turner of the University of Victoria. Nancy is one of the most well-known ethnobiologists in Canada and Deconstructing Dinner's Jon Steinman sat down with her in the community of Tofino to learn more about what ethnobiology is, why the field is an increasingly important one to pay attention to, and what we all might learn from the many indigenous peoples who ethnobiologists work with.

    Also on the show - a recording of a presentation by Cheryl Bryce and Pamela Tudge who are examining how the indigenous peoples living in what is now the City of Victoria might reinstate traditional harvesting practices of an important traditional food - camus.

    Click on the web link above to read more.

    June 3, 2010
    "EXPLORING ETHNOBIOLOGY I: PRESERVING TRADITIONAL FOODWAYS AMONG INDIGENOUS YOUTH"

    Web Link: http://www.cjly.net/deconstructingdinner/060310.htm
    Download Audio Link: http://traffic.libsyn.com/deconstructingdinner/DD060310.mp3
    Stream Audio Link: http://cjly.net/deconstructingdinner/audio/DD060310.m3u

    As people throughout the Western world are increasingly seeking to reconnect with their food, there's a lot to be learned from the many peoples who have long maintained these dynamic relationships between their sustenance and the earth. Ethnobiologists research these very relationships through a scientific lens and it's a field of study bringing together many disciplines like anthropology, ecology and conservation to name just a few.

    Click on the web link above to read more.

  • Call for Abstracts: New Zealand Ecological Society Conference Biodiversity: 2010 and beyond, Dunedin NZ, 21–25 November 2010
    2010/07/20 - 4:10pm

    Call for abstracts for a symposium on “Cultural perspectives on biodiversity research and management”, New Zealand Ecological Society Conference Biodiversity: 2010 and beyond, Dunedin NZ, 21–25 November 2010.

    The New Zealand Ecological Society is honoured to have two eminent keynote speakers to start off their upcoming symposium on cultural approaches to biodiversity research and management – Chief Randall Kahgee (Saugeen-Ojibwe First Nation, Ontario, Canada) and Prof Te Ahukaramū Charles Royal (Ngā Pae o Te Māramatanga, University of Auckland). So far we also have six expressions of interest to contribute 20 minute papers. The items offered already are delightfully varied, so we already know we are going to have a stimulating symposium within a much broader conference that already incorporates excellent ecology and wildlife management.

    We seek contributions that highlight opportunities and challenges faced by a wide diversity of

    • ethnic, cultural, religious or or national identities
    • cross-cultural partnerships or clashes
    • ecological goals (biodiversity conservation, harvest management, pest control)
    • habitats, communities and populations
    • applied and theoretical perspectives
    • research and management

    ... diversity rules, so bring it on!

    The conference website is now live, at http://www.nzesconference.org.nz/ and also accessible from the NZES website at http://www.nzes.org.nz/. Henrik Moller and Corey Bragg (both from Kā Rakahau o Te Ao Tūroa) will help convene the symposium, so please direct any queries about the cultural symposium to them both (corey.bragg@otago.ac.nz; henrik.moller@otago.ac.nz); and for other issues contact:

    The cultural symposium is currently scheduled for Wednesday 24th November. There is room for 10 spoken presentations on that day. If we can not fit into the Wednesday slot, some papers submitted for presentation to the cultural symposium may also have to be transferred to the general papers section on the Tuesday or Thursday, or students will be asked to present in the Student day (Sunday) that precedes the conference. If we still have too many culturally oriented papers, we will invite some of them as posters for Tuesday 23rd. Also, if we have enough registrants, we will design some adjunct workshops (probably Thursday 24th morning) that will give several others a short formal role to facilitate discussion on the opportunities and challenges for cultural and cross-cultural approaches to biodiversity care. Please let Henrik and Corey know if you have a particular topic for discussion or exercise that you would to run in a workshop. If and organise a separate more informal workshop at another time in the conference schedule.

    We are still considering options for a culturally oriented field trip - watch the conference website for any developments.

    In the meantime, please now submit your proposed paper title and abstracts using the template to be downloaded from the conference website, and Email it to Deb Wilson at DebNZES2010@landcareresearch.co.nz. We must receive your title and abstract by 1 September at the very latest, but the sooner the better for helping our planning. We will notify you at least within a week after that deadline about whether your contribution has been accepted. However we will also allocate some of the slots to overseas contributors (immediately upon receipt of their abstract) before then to facilitate their travel planning.

    Some people travelling from far away may wish to link the NZES conference with one happening in Suva, Fiji, from 29 November until 3rd December. That conference is called “Future Challenges, Ancient Solutions: What we can learn from the past about managing the future in the Pacific” and includes several symposia concerning culture and environmental management, including one entitled “Ethnobiology: A bridge between indigenous and modern science”. Check out the conference website at www.usp.ac.fj/conference.

    Please pass on this invitation to any colleagues that you think may be interested.

    We look forward to meeting you and a stimulating discussion.

    Ciao/Cheers

    Corey Bragg and Henrik Moller

    (Co-convenors, Cultural Symposium of NZES Conference 2010)

  • Call for Nominations: 6th WLB Award for Excellence in Genetic Resource Conservation
    2010/06/15 - 5:19pm

    The William L. Brown Award recognizes the outstanding contributions of an individual towards the study of useful plants and their conservation. It is administered by the William L. Brown Center at the Missouri Botanical Garden and is made possible through a generous endowment from the Sehgal Family Foundation, in cooperation with the family of Dr. Brown.

    Bill Brown was a distinguished, internationally-recognized scientist, businessman, and humanitarian. Over the course of five decades, he devoted himself to the collection, preservation, understanding, and sharing of plant genetic resources in order to help meet the global demand for food. The William L. Brown Award recognizes an individual whose efforts and achievements reflect a concern for those issues that were so important to Dr. Brown. Prior recipients include: Nancy Turner of the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada; Gordon Cragg of the National Institutes of Health; Henry Shands of the USDA Agricultural Research Service; Carlos Ochoa of the Centro Internacional de la Papa (International Potato Center); and Calvin O. Qualset of the University of California at Davis.

    Nominations for the next William L. Brown Award will be accepted beginning in the summer of 2010. All nomination materials and supporting letters must be received no later than August 31, 2010. The name of the recipient will be announced in the fall of 2010; an award ceremony will take place in conjunction with the annual meetings of the Botanical Society of America and the Society for Economic Botany to be held at the Missouri Botanical Garden in July of 2011.

    Nominations should call attention to the nominee’s achievements and the significance of his or her work as it relates to the study and conservation of plants that are used by people for nourishment, medicines, or other important functions of life. Please include a photograph of the nominee along with a curriculum vitae containing a list of the nominee’s publications. In addition, independent letters of support are required from three individuals not directly associated with the parent institution of either the nominee or the nominator. The letters may be sent directly to the Award Committee by those writing them. Please do not send videos or similar presentations, books, or published papers. All submitted materials become property of the Missouri Botanical Garden and cannot be returned. All nominations and letters should be sent to:

    The William L. Brown Award Committee
    WLBC @ the Missouri Botanical Garden
    P.O. Box 299
    St. Louis, MO 63166-0299
    USA

  • 2010 Recipients of the Best Ethnobiology Poster Award
    2010/06/15 - 4:41pm

    Mairi M. Capper (Simon Fraser University). In Their Words: Using Ancient Written Sources to Interpret the Palaeobotanical Remains of Tell Tayinat, Turkey. [Abstract]

    Jocelyn Mueller (Tufts University, Boston, USA). Including Local Voices in Global Discourse: Case Studies from Boumba, Niger. [Abstract]

    Congratulations Mairi and Jocelyn!

  • 2010 Recipient of the Barbara Lawrence Award
    2010/06/14 - 10:15pm

    John Marston (University of California, Los Angeles). Assessing Long Term Sustainability of Agricultural Systems. (Oral presentation). [Abstract]

    Congratulations John!

  • Ethnobiology Letters: New Online, Open-access, Peer Reviewed Journal for Short Papers
    2010/06/10 - 9:38am

    The Society of Ethnobiology introduces a new online, open-access, peer reviewed journal for short papers (http://ethnobiology.org/ethnobiology-letters) called Ethnobiology Letters (EBL).  The Society now publishes a full complement of journals headlined by the Journal of Ethnobiology and complemented by Contributions in Ethnobiology for monograph length publications and EBL for short papers.

  • Announcing the SoE Undergraduate Student Award
    2010/02/10 - 9:53pm

    The Society of Ethnobiology is looking for a keen undergraduate ethnobiologist to sit on our Board as an appointed "student advisor". The student should come with ideas and energy to increase undergraduate student involvement in our Society.

    This is a one-year position that comes with a one-year membership in the Society, a waiver for our Society of Ethnobiology annual meeting registration, accommodation for 3 nights during the conference, and $250 USD to put towards travel. More details »

    If you feel you are well suited for this position, send a one-page (maximum) letter to Dr. Marsha Quinlan at mquinlan@wsu.edu explaining who you are, your interest in ethnobiology, and your ideas to increase undergraduate student involvement in our Society. There is no deadline for submission, but the adjudication for the award will happen in early Fall of every year.

  • Forum on Cross-cultural Environmental Research and Management, J. of the Royal Society of New Zealand
    2009/11/30 - 12:16am

    An ethnobiology and co-management research team at the University of Otago, New Zealand recently convened and edited a Forum on "Cross-cultural Environmental Research and Management", which has just been published in The Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand. The Forum publications can be accessed here:

    http://www.royalsociety.org.nz/Site/publish/Journals/jrsnz/2009/default.aspx

    The Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand is open to continuing the discussion on cross-cultural environmental research and management in the upcoming year by publishing replies (from the authors) or contributions from new authors. Any continuation would be either as letters, short communications, or full papers, depending on the length and nature of each new contribution. For more information, please contact Henrik Moller at the University of Otago (henrik.moller@otago.ac.nz, ecosys@ihug.co.nz).

  • Reviewers Solicited for Journal of Ethnobiology
    2009/10/06 - 11:45pm

    The Journal of Ethnobiology is seeking to expand its pool of volunteers who review manuscripts submitted to the Journal’s editors for publication.  The Journal receives manuscripts in paleoethnobotany, zooarchaeology, ethnobotany, ethnozoology, ethnoecology, linguistic ethnobiology, and other related areas of anthropology and biology.  If you have expertise in one or more of these fields and are willing to serve as a reviewer, please contact the Journal’s editors,  Virginia Popper and Heather Trigg, at editor@ethnobiology.org   If you are interested in reviewing ethnobiology-related books and multimedia for the Journal, please contact book review editor Cynthia Fowler at fowlerct@wofford.edu  We welcome suggestions for materials to review, or we could provide you with one of the texts in our inventory.  Both the Journal of Ethnobiology and the Society thank you for your interest and service.

  • Free access to Journal of Ethnobiology via BioOne for Individual Society Members
    2008/11/30 - 5:14pm

    Members* of the Society of Ethnobiology have free access to the Journal of Ethnobiology through BioOne, a unique aggregation of high-impact bioscience research journals. Click here to access the BioOne link. Note: you will require a valid login and password to access this page.

    *Free access to BioONe is only available to our individual members (not for institutions).

  • Announcing our book-length on-line publication series, "Contributions in Ethnobiology"
    2009/05/19 - 7:21am

    Contributions in Ethnobiology is a peer-reviewed monograph series published electronically by the Society of Ethnobiology. The series is a forum for publishing original book-length research on past or present relationships of human societies with their biological worlds. Contributions are data-rich, state-of-the-art studies, which may be either single-authored or edited volumes with multiple authors. On-line publication allows freedom from traditional publishing restraints on specialist topics, unusual length, and number of figures. The series’ intended readership is interdisciplinary and includes academics and practitioners in archaeology, biology, cultural anthropology, ecology, geography, and pharmacology, among others.

    Click here for more details about our exciting new publication series.

  • SoE-sponsored Ethnobiology Textbook Underway with Wiley-Blackwell Publishers
    2008/12/08 - 4:06am

    The Society of Ethnobiology has embarked on a major project:  producing a comprehensive textbook of ethnobiology.  The field of ethnobiology has grown very rapidly in recent years, with several international societies and journals dedicated to it. Ethnobotany and medical ethnobiology in particular are now major fields with hundreds of active researchers. Centers at major universities, and independent research institutes, now exist all over the world. Much of the cutting-edge research is happening in China, India, Mexico, Brazil, and other countries outside of North America and Europe.

    The SoE Board feels that the time is right for a textbook devoted specifically to the field of ethnobiology, including its interdisciplinary theoretical groundings, historical development, and diverse applications. The textbook, currently under contract with Wiley-Blackwell publishers, will cover all aspects of ethnobiology, including archaeological, ethnological, linguistic, and laboratory-biological approaches. 

    The textbook chapters will be written by leading ethnobiological experts, with submissions coordinated by an Editorial Team for this project. The Team members are: Karen Adams (University of Arizona), Eugene Anderson (University of California, Riverside), Deborah Pearsall (University of Missouri), Eugene Hunn (University of Washington) and Nancy Turner (University of Victoria).

    The resulting textbook will be a basic reference primarily intended for upper division students: juniors, seniors, beginning graduates.  It will allow students to begin doing guided research in any area of ethnobiology, from archaeoethnozoology to ethnomycology.  It will also be a reference source for the general public and for scholars of all types.

    For more information about the SoE textbook project, please contact Gene Anderson: gene@ucr.edu.