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Introduction: Traveling Cultures and Plants: The Ethnobiology and Ethnopharmacy of Migrations

Publication Type  Book Chapter
Authors  Andrea Pieroni; Ina Vandebroek
Year of Publication  2007
Editor  Andrea Pieroni; Ina Vandebroek
Book Title  Traveling Cultures and Plants: The Ethnobiology and Ethnopharmacy of Migrations
City  Oxford
Publisher  Berghahn Books
Pages  1-13
Chapter  Intro
Language  English
Key Words  acculturation; biocultural adaptation; cultural negotiation; emic; etic; identity; immigrants; transcultural health studies; urban ethnobotany
Notes   Reflective of the accelerated pace of globalization and rural-urban migration today, urban ethnobotany is a rapidly expanding field of study. Pieroni and Vandebroek, as editors and contributors, have published a compilation of urban ethnobotany and transcultural health studies, and the introduction that they co-authored outlines important issues encompassed by these two overlapping disciplines. The book’s twelve case studies, each authored by experienced researchers, demonstrate a diversity of approaches and research questions for studying the plants that national and transnational migrants use for food, medicine, well-being and identity in metropolitan areas of the industrialized world. Past and present contexts of the interaction between people and plants are explored and used in the analysis of transnational movements, urban living, health and health care and biocultural adaptation. Brief descriptions of each of the book’s chapters are provided. Three chapters investigate plant remedies used by Latino immigrants in New York City. One chapter addresses health issues surrounding diabetes for Asians in the United States, and another author researched medicinal plant use by Thai women in Sweden. The effects of differing regulations for plant importation in host countries are shown to affect the ethnomedical practices of Surinamese immigrants in Amsterdam and of Latino immigrants in London. Plant foods are found to be significant aspects of the politico-historical ethnic identity amongst Kurdish people in London, and the use of khat by Somali UK immigrants is investigated in light of its contemporary demonization by Western culture. The final three chapters look into plant use in the contexts of historical migrations in northern Europe, Albanians in southern Italy, and refugee camps in Algeria. The editors identify four key scientific questions that warrant systematic investigation by researchers: 1) Do migrants continue to adhere to their traditional plant use strategies, and if so, why? 2) How does the new urban context affect their health care-seeking strategies and their newly-situated cultural, social, environmental and political identities? 3) How do migrant health care practices and host population medical systems interact? and 4) What is the awareness of host country health workers and institutions about migrant health strategies? In the interest of providing more culturally appropriate health care services for ethnically diverse populations, such research can help heath workers understand immigrants' perceptions, beliefs and practices surrounding their well-being. More emic-oriented approaches to immigrant health care programs could hence be incorporated to institutional strategies. Processes of acculturation and adaptation are pointed to as integral to anthropological discourse on migrant studies. Importantly, the editors stress that “adaptation does not represent a sort of ‘destiny’” (p.4). Today’s state of the art of these concepts instead recognizes a kind of cultural negotiation, whereby immigrants constantly interact with a diverse range of choices and influences in heterogeneous urban settings. Whether immigrants are strengthening their ethnic identities or adapting to the host culture, the ways that they use and represent plants are concurrently transformed, producing dynamic outcomes for their traditional knowledge, beliefs and practices. Prepared by Megan Glore

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