People and Plants
| Created: | 2014-07-21 08:36 |
|---|---|
| Institution: | Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities |
| Description: | Conveners
Françoise Barbira Freedman (Social Anthropology) Piers Vitebsky (Scott Polar Reserach Institute) Summary From local to vast intercontinental exchanges, flows of plants have always been accompanied by human transactions or translations on cultural, intellectual, political and economic levels. Recent research prompts us to re-assess what relationships may have been obscured in colonial projects and, more recently, in bioprospecting - relationships rarely addressed due to disciplinary boundaries. How is our understanding of past and present, material and non-material values associated with plants being transformed across local, regional and global levels? We can regard plants as bundles of ecological knowledge, of know-how on propagation and cultivation, novel uses and key understandings about human physiology and therapeutic applications. These bundles of knowledge are passed on and transformed along the routes over which plants are carried. Traceable over time, this process is of interest not only for the analysis of plant dissemination, , the complex continuum from wild species to cultivars and the adaptation of plants to changing climates, but also when addressing the role of plants and plant communities in structuring social relationships. New insights from chemistry, plant sciences, and the social sciences increasingly challenge past anthropocentric perspectives on plants and invite further discussion. Changing factors such as resource depletion, climate change, hegemonic shifts, and economic disparities are affecting plant flows. Yet they also offer incentives to develop new approaches, particularly with regards to conservation. There is a need to address the cultural gap between the muted plant exchanges that continue to support grassroots horticulture and the new traffic of seeds and cash crops embedded in economic development. Both forms of cultural traffic not only transform regional borders but also circulate contrasting values, objects, practices, meanings and identities that are not easily reconciled. This symposium aims to raise greater awareness not only of past flows of plants but also of the creativity presently displayed by local actors to overcome barriers set by both international law and obsolete concepts inherited from earlier anthropology. Interest in immaterial resources associated with plants has developed in parallel with new approaches to biodiversity and conservation since the late 1990s. While international conventions and patent law give priority to owners and inventors of plant knowledge, the discourse of traditional rights supporting indigenous people’s ancestral knowledge has become entrenched in essentialist notions of communities and tradition. Pre-empting a polarization between TEK, (traditional ecological knowledge) and cosmopolitan intellectual property, and between tradition and technological innovation, a focus on the movements of plants and the material and non-material resources linked to them may allow new interpretations of what constitutes ‘knowledge’ of and ‘cultural property’ vested in plants. |
Media items
This collection contains 18 media items.
Media items
Bryony Morgan : Transforming International Trade in Wild Plant Ingredients: Experiences with the FairWild Standard
Bryony Morgan (Traffic): Transforming International Trade in Wild Plant Ingredients: Experiences with the FairWild Standard
Collection: People and Plants
Institution: Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities
Created: Mon 21 Jul 2014
Dame Marilyn Strathern : Closing Comments
Dame Marilyn Strathern (Social Anthropology, Cambridge)
Collection: People and Plants
Institution: Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities
Created: Mon 21 Jul 2014
Elsa Rengifo and Françoise Barbira Freedman : Registers of Plant Knowledge in Peruvian Amazonia after the Nagoya...
Elsa Rengifo (Peruvian Institute of Amazonian Research) and Françoise Barbira Freedman (Social Anthropology, Cambridge) in collaboration with Stephen Hugh-Jones (Social...
Collection: People and Plants
Institution: Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities
Created: Mon 21 Jul 2014
Gary Martin : Medicinal herb flows, plant conservation and local livelihoods in Morocco
Gary Martin (Global Diversity Foundation): Medicinal herb flows, plant conservation and local livelihoods in Morocco
Collection: People and Plants
Institution: Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities
Created: Mon 21 Jul 2014
Jeremy Narby : Intelligence in nature
Jeremy Narby (Nouvelle Planète, Switzerland): Intelligence in nature
Collection: People and Plants
Institution: Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities
Created: Mon 21 Jul 2014
Kamal Adhikari : New Flows of Cultural Value around ‘People and Plants’ in Nepal
Kamal Adhikari (Nepal and University of Aberdeen): New Flows of Cultural Value around ‘People and Plants’ in Nepal
Collection: People and Plants
Institution: Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities
Created: Mon 21 Jul 2014
Martin Jones : The past and future role of minor cereals
Martin Jones (Archaeology, University of Cambridge): The past and future role of
minor cereals
Collection: People and Plants
Institution: Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities
Created: Mon 21 Jul 2014
Martin Kaonga : Ethnobotany in Community-Managed Land Use Systems in Tropical Countries: an A Rocha Perspective
Martin Kaonga (A Rocha, Cambridge): Ethnobotany in Community-Managed Land Use Systems in Tropical Countries: an A Rocha Perspective
Collection: People and Plants
Institution: Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities
Created: Mon 21 Jul 2014
Rodrigo Camara-Leret : The Traditional Knowledge of Medicinal Plants in Northwest South America is Strongly Localized
Rodrigo Camara-Leret (Universidad Autonoma, Madrid): The Traditional Knowledge of Medicinal Plants in Northwest South America is Strongly Localized
Collection: People and Plants
Institution: Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities
Created: Mon 21 Jul 2014
Saskia van Oosterhout : Seeds as Embodied Heritage: Gender and Conservation in Zimbabwe
Saskia van Oosterhout (Cape Town, South Africa): Seeds as Embodied Heritage:
Gender and Conservation in Zimbabwe
Collection: People and Plants
Institution: Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities
Created: Mon 21 Jul 2014
Seona Anderson : Cultural Values in Plant Conservation – the Corncockle Approach
Seona Anderson (Plant Life): Cultural Values in Plant Conservation – the Corncockle Approach
Collection: People and Plants
Institution: Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities
Created: Mon 21 Jul 2014
Sir David Baulcombe and Sir Ghillean Prance : Opening Address and The Guaraní of Misiones, Argentina, their plants and...
Conference Opening Address
Sir David Baulcombe (Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge): Botany, Ethonobotany, Plant Sciences
Keynote
Sir Ghillean Prance (Former...
Collection: People and Plants
Institution: Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities
Created: Mon 21 Jul 2014
Steven Bentley : Buglossoides Arvensis 2005-2014, the development of a new oil crop from a weed species
Steven Bentley (National Institute of Agricultural Botany, University of Cambridge): Buglossoides Arvensis 2005-2014, the development of a new oil crop from a weed species
Collection: People and Plants
Institution: Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities
Created: Mon 21 Jul 2014
Tai-Ping Fan : Traditional medicine, memory and neurodegeneration. Cognitive and memory enhancing effects of Polygala...
Tai-Ping Fan (Pharmacology, University of Cambridge): Traditional medicine, memory and neurodegeneration. Cognitive and memory enhancing effects of Polygala and other extracts.
Collection: People and Plants
Institution: Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities
Created: Mon 21 Jul 2014
Tim Bayliss Smith : Turmeric, sexuality and gender in the Polynesian Outliers: the changing meanings in Solomon Islands...
Tim Bayliss Smith (Geography, Cambridge):Turmeric, sexuality and gender in the
Polynesian Outliers: the changing meanings in Solomon Islands of a potent cosmetic
substance
Collection: People and Plants
Institution: Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities
Created: Mon 21 Jul 2014
Tony Crook : Life itself in the Pacific: unbounded forms of life, relational life forms
Tony Crook (University of St Andrews): Life itself in the Pacific: unbounded forms of life, relational life forms
Collection: People and Plants
Institution: Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities
Created: Mon 21 Jul 2014
Virginia Nazarea : A Matter of Place: In- and Trans- situ Biodiversity Conservation
Virginia Nazarea (University of Georgia): A Matter of Place: In- and Trans- situ Biodiversity Conservation
Collection: People and Plants
Institution: Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities
Created: Mon 21 Jul 2014
William Millken : The Ebb and Flow of Plant Resources and Knowledge: Contemporary and Historical Perspectives from Kew
William Millken (Kew Gardens): The Ebb and Flow of Plant Resources and Knowledge: Contemporary and Historical Perspectives from Kew
Collection: People and Plants
Institution: Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities
Created: Mon 21 Jul 2014