TY - JOUR

T1 - Gendered medicinal plant knowledge contributions to adaptive capacity and health sovereignty in Amazonia

AU - Díaz-Reviriego, Isabel

AU - Fernández-Llamazares, Álvaro

AU - Salpeteur, Matthieu

AU - Howard, Patricia L.

AU - Reyes-García, Victoria

N1 - Funding Information: This research was funded by the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013)/ERC Grant Agreement N° FP7-261971-LEK to Reyes-García. We express our profound gratitude to our informants, for their willingness to share their time and knowledge. We thank the Gran Consejo Tsimane’ and the CBIDSI for providing logistical support and office facilities in San Borja; and we thank Marta Pache, Paulino Pache, Sascha Huditz, Vicente Cuata, Consuelo Campos, Isabel Virginia Sánchez, Óscar Plata, and Sandra Martínez for field assistance. Publisher Copyright: © 2016, The Author(s).

PY - 2016/12/1

Y1 - 2016/12/1

N2 - Local medical systems are key elements of social-ecological systems as they provide culturally appropriate and locally accessible health care options, especially for populations with scarce access to biomedicine. The adaptive capacity of local medical systems generally rests on two pillars: species diversity and a robust local knowledge system, both threatened by local and global environmental change. We first present a conceptual framework to guide the assessment of knowledge diversity and redundancy in local medicinal knowledge systems through a gender lens. Then, we apply this conceptual framework to our research on the local medicinal plant knowledge of the Tsimane’ Amerindians. Our results suggest that Tsimane’ medicinal plant knowledge is gendered and that the frequency of reported ailments and the redundancy of knowledge used to treat them are positively associated. We discuss the implications of knowledge diversity and redundancy for local knowledge systems’ adaptive capacity, resilience, and health sovereignty.

AB - Local medical systems are key elements of social-ecological systems as they provide culturally appropriate and locally accessible health care options, especially for populations with scarce access to biomedicine. The adaptive capacity of local medical systems generally rests on two pillars: species diversity and a robust local knowledge system, both threatened by local and global environmental change. We first present a conceptual framework to guide the assessment of knowledge diversity and redundancy in local medicinal knowledge systems through a gender lens. Then, we apply this conceptual framework to our research on the local medicinal plant knowledge of the Tsimane’ Amerindians. Our results suggest that Tsimane’ medicinal plant knowledge is gendered and that the frequency of reported ailments and the redundancy of knowledge used to treat them are positively associated. We discuss the implications of knowledge diversity and redundancy for local knowledge systems’ adaptive capacity, resilience, and health sovereignty.

KW - Gendered knowledge

KW - Knowledge diversity

KW - Knowledge redundancy

KW - Local knowledge systems

KW - Local medical systems

KW - Tsimane’

KW - Gender and Diversity

KW - Biology

KW - Ecosystems Research

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84996522023&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1007/s13280-016-0826-1

DO - 10.1007/s13280-016-0826-1

M3 - Journal articles

C2 - 27878530

AN - SCOPUS:84996522023

VL - 45

SP - 263

EP - 275

JO - Ambio

JF - Ambio

SN - 0044-7447

IS - Supplement 3

ER -