Premium
Introduction
Author(s) -
Ellen Roy
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
journal of the royal anthropological institute
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.62
H-Index - 62
eISSN - 1467-9655
pISSN - 1359-0987
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9655.2006.00270.x
Subject(s) - ethnobiology , orthodoxy , anthropology , subject matter , cultural transmission in animals , epistemology , sociology , subject (documents) , linguistic anthropology , geography , philosophy , biology , computer science , evolutionary biology , archaeology , pedagogy , library science , curriculum
This introduction to the volume argues for the central and integrating role of the subject matter of ethnobiological research in anthropology understood in its widest sense: in its biological, archaeo‐historical, and socio‐cultural dimensions. The background and current status of ethnobiology are assessed, and its contribution to anthropological issues considered under the following headings: the foundational paradigm of taxonomic orthodoxy; language and the translation of knowledge systems; cognition and culture; the social organization and transmission of knowledge; medical ethnobiology; the applied practice of ethnobiology; and – the meta‐theory which binds all this together – the co‐evolutionary paradigm as part of a wider ‘biocultural synthesis’. The way in which the collected papers exemplify these themes is discussed.