Positioning Ethnobotany in Scientific Movements Janna L. Rose, MA, PhD Grenoble Ecole de Management SEB 2013, Plymouth, UK
What is Ethnobotany? • Fields of Study—defined by what people do? – More dialectic, dynamic – Established through a process that includes forming groups of interested parties, creating journals, lobbying, networking…
Creating a Field – Recognition • • • •
Legitimization for gov/politics/economics Popularization for public Self-identity for scientists Important for Funding
– Boundary Work • Shaping and Re-shaping what “counts” in the field • Pushing out or Ignoring who doesn’t fit • Attracting desirable members
So, what counts in a field? • How is Science (at large) or Fields of Inquiry (at meso-level) shaped, created, stretched, pulled into new directions, stopped in undesirable directions… • How is knowledge created or deleted? • Kuhn’s Scientific Revolutions in 1960s • Scientific Intellectual Movements (SIMs)
Recent studies of Field Emergence • Granqvist and Laurila 2011 – New Fields have multiple creators in an active process
• Proctor and Schiebinger 2008 – Agnotology shapes what is left out
Social Contexts of SIMs Popular Culture
Politics, Economics
Scientific Movements
Institutions
A Scientific Field
Framing events • Let’s start with a little chunk of time… Events before
Events after
Over time…many units in a line (a timeline) Events (Filters? Defining Moments?)
Current Time, until the next event…
Currently Relevant Ideas and Actors
Older ideas or actors Newly included idea or actor
Older idea or actor that falls out of favor
SIMs and Field Formation over Time • Granqvist and Laurila 2011 – Following the line of timeframes • Imaginers • Innovators • Boundary Shapers
– But Ethnobotany is not really a “new field” • Link to colonial past, merchant or capitalist systems
Objectives • What does the time spectrum of Ethnobotany look like? • How have the SIMs of the past 50 years (molecular genetics, epigenetics, proteomics, nanotechnology, inter-species communication, agroecology) influenced the field of Ethnobotany?
Methods Since the theory of field emergence requires investigation of 3 types of roles, my analysis has three parts. 1. Imaginers—Influence in the popular media 2. Innovators—political records and NIH’s creation of NCCAM, as an event 3. Scientists—scientific peer-reviewed publications, evaluation
And I add Agnotology, or patterns of ignorance or things that should not be discussed
Results • Imaginers •
Magazines (Science, Nature) Rainforests as Medicine Chests Rainforests as lungs Idea of the Nobel Savage Acid Rain -> Pollution -> Climate Change Deforestation, Pristine Forests , Corridors, Managed Forests, Tribal Forests -> Sustainability
• • • • •
•
Books – – – – – –
•
After Silent Spring—popular culture began to question the safety of chemical products Tales from a Shaman’s Apprentice Nafanua The Kapok Tree The Serpent and the Rainbow Many popular “adventure” books
Movies –
Medicine Man (Sean Connery and Lorraine Bracco, John McTiernan director, 1999 DVD Release,)
– – – – – – – – – –
The Constant Gardener (Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz) The Fountain (Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz) The Gods Must be Crazy (1980) N!xau Gorillas in the Mist (Sigourney Weaver) Out of Africa (Robert Redford and Meryl Streep) Hotel Rwanda (Don Cheadle) The Shawshank Redemption (Tim Robbins) Seven Years in Tibet (Brad Pitt) Last of the Mohicans (Daniel Day-Lewis) Many popular Harrison Ford or Sean Connery Movies
•
#8,594 on Amazon’s movie list
Awesome, innovative lab gear…
Cool lab gadgets…
Make believe...(Imagine-ation)
Results • Innovators – Politics, Economics, Legitimization – Recognition, Awards
Why do people innovate?
(cartoon taken from website: http://www.smbccomics.com/index.php?db=comics &id=2088)
Results • Innovators – – – – – – – – –
Politics, Economics, Legitimization Recognition, Awards Different kinds of medicine Different kinds of agriculture WHO, WHO Traditional Medicine CBD, NAPRALERT, ICRISAT, Seedbanks Rainforest Alliance, WWF, Survivor International National Cancer Institute and Costa Rica NCCAM creation
Results Formation of NCCAM is a “Field Configuring Event” 1991 Office of Alternative Medicine (OAM) 1998 The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) Considered Part of the NIH
Results • Scientists • Boundary shaping – Scientists defining topics (still many) – Trying to leave out the less “scientific” – Many journals – Many ways to legitimize-patents, money, books, publications, know-how, expertise…
Conclusions • Incorporating Ethnobotany into the future – SIMs = bioinformatics, molecular research, nanotechnology, space exploration… – Funding = incremental change or something big? – Politics = the field’s place in today’s society
• Focus on Alternatives – Public Health institutions for preventive medicine
• Focus on CBD and IPR – Improving access to or protection of resources – Changing the patent and property rights systems
Thank you! I would like to continue this line of research.
If you have any comments, suggestions, tales, pointers…
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