|| || ||

Laboratories of Ethnobiology

About Us

The Laboratories of Ethnobiology are part of the facilities of the University of Georgia's Department of Anthropology and contribute to the department's program in Ecological and Environmental Anthropology. Over the last several years, faculty and students in the labs have carried out research in the highlands and subtropical lowlands of Chiapas, Mexico. Most of this research has been conducted in collaboration with Tzeltal and Tzotzil communities. Additional work has been carried out among the Tojolabal, Chol, and Lacandon Maya of Chiapas and among the Kekchí Maya of Belize. The primary emphasis of this work has been on medical ethnobiology, ethnobotany, natural resource conservation/management, and child acquisition of traditional ethnobiological knowledge. Student doctoral research is also underway with the Rarámuri (Tarahumara) of northern México and the Aguaruna and Huambisa Jívaro in the northern Peruvian Amazon. New research is currently being planned among and in collaboration with the migrant Hispanic/Latino populations of northeastern Georgia emphasizing ethnobotany, ethnomedicine, demographic anthropology, and community development work.

 

Laboratory faculty are affiliated with El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR), in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, México, where research and teaching has been carried out as part of an academic exchange agreement established between the two institutions. Examples of some of the current research topics include fieldwork on the ecological anthropology of medicinal plants, basic inventory work on ethnobiological resources important in diet, horticultural potential of non-cultivated plant species of nutritional importance, biological reserve management policy, environmental education, ethnoepidemiology, and broad-based ethnomedical and ethnobotanicasl systematic survey and exploration of the flora of the Chiapas Highlands. A major resent emphasis of this work has been the development of Highland Maya medicinal plants gardens as part of community initiated health maintenance programs. The long-term goal of these gardens is to establish small community-based herbal medicine production cooperatives where standardized herbal products can be marketed nationally and internationally. Challenging research training opportunities are available to selected students who have a good speaking knowledge of Spanish and who are keenly interested in first-hand fieldwork on topics of basic and applied significance in ethnobiology in Latin America and among Hispanic/Latino populations in the United States.