Paper short abstract:

We argue that ethnobiology should move toward actively challenging colonialism, racism, and oppressive structures embedded within their institutions, projects, and ourselves. As an international group of ethnobiologists and scholars from allied fields, we identified key priorities for this work.

Paper long abstract:

Ethnobiology, like many fields, was shaped by early Western imperial efforts to colonize people and lands around the world and extract natural resources. Those legacies and practices persist today and continue to influence the institutions ethnobiologists are a part of, how they carry out research, and their personal beliefs and actions. Various authors have previously outlined five overlapping “phases” of ethnobiology. We argue that ethnobiology should move toward a sixth phase in which scholars and practitioners must actively challenge colonialism, racism, and oppressive structures embedded within their institutions, projects, and themselves. As an international group of ethnobiologists and scholars from allied fields, we identified key topics and priorities at three levels: at the institutional scale, we argue for repatriation/rematriation of biocultural heritage, accessibility of published work, and realignment of priorities to support community-driven research. At the level of projects, we emphasize the need for mutual dialogue, reciprocity, community research self-sufficiency, and research questions that support sovereignty of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities over lands and waters. Finally, for individual scholars, we support self-reflection on language use, co-authorship, and implicit bias. We advocate for concrete actions at each of these levels to move the field further toward social justice, antiracism, and decolonization.

Tania Eulalia Martínez-Cruz - University of Greenwich

Mark Nesbitt - Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

Meredith Alberta Palmer - Cornell University

Walderes Cocta Priprá de Almeida - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina

Jane Anderson - New York University

Zemede Asfaw - Addis Ababa University

Israel T. Borokini - University of Nevada

Eréndira Juanita Cano-Contreras - Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

Simon Hoyte - University College London

Maui Hudson - University of Waikato

Ana H. Ladio - INIBIOMA (CONICET-Universidad Nacional del Comahue)

Guillaume Odonne - CNRS-LEEISA (USR 3456)

Sonia Peter - Biocultural Education and Research Programme

John Rashford - College of Charleston

Jeffrey Wall - University of Guelph

Steve Wolverton - University of North Texas