Indigenous Knowledge and Development

Livelihoods, Health Experiences, and Medicinal Plant Knowledge in a Mexican Biosphere Reserve

Elizabeth Anne Olson

Indigenous Knowledge and Development: Livelihoods, Health Experiences, and Medicinal Plant Knowledge in a Mexican Biosphere Reserve provides an ethnographic account of a group of indigenous people living in a natural resource protected area in west central Mexico. The political, economic, and social history of these indigenous Nahua people is related to their cultural knowledge. As an anthropological study, the analysis presented in this book is based on household level socioeconomic data and cultural knowledge measured through the use of both structured and semi-structured interviews. The study presented here moves back and forth between the macro- and micro- to explore the relationships between three central axes—health, livelihood and cultural knowledge. The Sierra of Manantlán Biosphere Reserve is the fieldsite where this study was carried out during 2007 and 2008. This Reserve is governed by explicit goals of cultural and natural resource preservation. Exhaustive household censuses give a comprehensive view of livelihood activities, and individual health experiences are measured using a structured interview. Demonstrated through the economic activity profiles present in the study sample, the indigenous people in the Reserve subsist through low-intensity agriculture, animal husbandry, and paid labor. Political histories of Mexico and the Reserve, specifically, continually shape subsistence strategies and the agrarian communities. Medical pluralism and the health profile in Mexico influence the local-level health status and access to health care services in the Reserve, demonstrated by the persistence of medicinal plant knowledge. The interviews with medicinal plant experts and biomedical practitioners are used to illustrate the spectrum of opinions regarding usage of medicinal plants across the three study communities in the Reserve. Significantly, there is neither a direct nor linear relationship between the loss of cultural knowledge and increasing modernity. This research contributes to ethnographic knowledge about conservation and cultural heritage on protected areas in Mexico.

Lexington Books

Pages: 200 • Trim: 6¼ x 9¼

978-0-7391-7663-4 • Hardback • February 2014 • $114.00 • (£88.00)

978-0-7391-7664-1 • eBook • February 2014 • $108.00 • (£83.00)

Subjects: Social Science / Anthropology / Cultural, Health & Fitness / Herbal Medications, History / Latin America / Mexico, Social Science / Anthropology / General, Social Science / Indigenous Studies, Social Science / Development Geography, Social Science / World / Latin America, Social Science / Culture, Social Science / Socialization

Indigenous Knowledge and Development

Livelihoods, Health Experiences, and Medicinal Plant Knowledge in a Mexican Biosphere Reserve

Hardback

eBook

Summary

Indigenous Knowledge and Development: Livelihoods, Health Experiences, and Medicinal Plant Knowledge in a Mexican Biosphere Reserve provides an ethnographic account of a group of indigenous people living in a natural resource protected area in west central Mexico. The political, economic, and social history of these indigenous Nahua people is related to their cultural knowledge. As an anthropological study, the analysis presented in this book is based on household level socioeconomic data and cultural knowledge measured through the use of both structured and semi-structured interviews. The study presented here moves back and forth between the macro- and micro- to explore the relationships between three central axes—health, livelihood and cultural knowledge. The Sierra of Manantlán Biosphere Reserve is the fieldsite where this study was carried out during 2007 and 2008. This Reserve is governed by explicit goals of cultural and natural resource preservation. Exhaustive household censuses give a comprehensive view of livelihood activities, and individual health experiences are measured using a structured interview. Demonstrated through the economic activity profiles present in the study sample, the indigenous people in the Reserve subsist through low-intensity agriculture, animal husbandry, and paid labor. Political histories of Mexico and the Reserve, specifically, continually shape subsistence strategies and the agrarian communities. Medical pluralism and the health profile in Mexico influence the local-level health status and access to health care services in the Reserve, demonstrated by the persistence of medicinal plant knowledge. The interviews with medicinal plant experts and biomedical practitioners are used to illustrate the spectrum of opinions regarding usage of medicinal plants across the three study communities in the Reserve. Significantly, there is neither a direct nor linear relationship between the loss of cultural knowledge and increasing modernity. This research contributes to ethnographic knowledge about conservation and cultural heritage on protected areas in Mexico.

Details

Lexington Books

Pages: 200 • Trim: 6¼ x 9¼

978-0-7391-7663-4 • Hardback • February 2014 • $114.00 • (£88.00)

978-0-7391-7664-1 • eBook • February 2014 • $108.00 • (£83.00)

Subjects: Social Science / Anthropology / Cultural, Health & Fitness / Herbal Medications, History / Latin America / Mexico, Social Science / Anthropology / General, Social Science / Indigenous Studies, Social Science / Development Geography, Social Science / World / Latin America, Social Science / Culture, Social Science / Socialization

Author

Elizabeth A. Olson is assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Science/Studies at Allegheny College. She is a medical and environmental anthropologist whose research has looked at traditional healing systems and the relationships between humans and our environments in the United States, the Bolivian Amazon, Mexico, and Western Europe.

Table of Contents

List of Figures
List of Tables
List of Abbreviations
Preface
Acknowledgments

1. Introduction
2. Sierra of Manantlán Biosphere Reserve
3. Conservation and Subsistence Strategies
4. Market Interaction and Indigenous People
5. Governance: Community Decision-Making
6. Indigenous People and Development Programs
7. Ethnomedical Systems in Mexico
8. Medicinal Plant Knowledge in the Reserve
9. Final Thoughts

Glossary
Bibliography
Index
About the Author

Reviews

A systematic and meticulous study of community and environmental health, Olson's contribution may serve to strengthen biodiversity conservation initiatives lastingly and effectively.
— Justin Murphy Nolan, University of Arkansas

As human population, growth, and globalization leave no society or economy unaffected, this volume focuses on an interesting and increasingly important topic: the erosion of indigenous knowledge about human health and natural resources. Dr. Olson focuses on medicinal plant knowledge, an important area of traditional ecological knowledge, in indigenous communities of the Sierra de Manantlán Biosphere Reserve. Applying a variety of ethnographic methods, Olson’s case study is thorough, insightful, and provocative. As integrated conservation and sustainable development projects and environmental justice achieves the attention it deserves, works such as this will be instrumental to identify how the human development index can be achieved.
— Bruce Benz, Texas Wesleyan University

In Indigenous Knowledge and Development: Livelihoods, Health Experiences, and Medicinal Plant Knowledge in a Mexican Biosphere Reserve, Elizabeth Olson develops the three axes of traditional medical knowledge, sustainable activities, and the maintenance of indigenous patterns and deftly explores each one and their various intersections. It is well worthwhile to see a case of the cultural maintenance and contributions to modern practices such as sustainability. This interesting and informative text bridges several areas of concern about indigenous populations and modernization.

— Atwood Gaines, Case Western Reserve University