Ethics and Collaborations in Ethnobiology
Ethics and Collaborations in Ethnobiology
Session Type:
Oral
Session Date and Time:
Thursday, 21 May, 2026 - 09:00 to 10:40
Primary Organizer/Session Chair:
Armando Medinaceli
Email address:
Presentations
Abstract
09:00
Presentation Format:
Oral (in-person)
Since 1992, the Taraco Archaeological Project has endeavored to be a space for collaboration between archaeologists, anthropologists, and Indigenous Aymara community members of the Taraco Peninsula, Bolivia. With the overarching goal of understanding the many aspects of the long-term history of Indigenous livelihoods on the peninsula, the project has always been oriented around ethnobiological queries of human-plant-animal interactions across the landscape. This has presented important opportunities for collaborations around current and historical plant and animal focused activities on the peninsula, with the local Aymara experts as guides for the archaeological and anthropological researchers who hope to understand these activities in the past. Here, we hope to critical explore the ways in which these collaborations can be communicated to broader publics through local museusm, tours, and multimedia to not only help preserve and share the learned knowledge but allow it to play a role in supporting the local economy.
09:20
Presentation Format:
Oral (in-person)
In collaboration with the Chinanteco peoples of Oaxaca, Mexico, we began a project several years ago to document the local fauna and create educational materials that support conservation while recognizing the importance of the Chinanteco peoples’ Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK). After a long pause in our collaboration due to other priorities in the local context, we reconnected and resumed the original plan. The project now highlights TEK by comparing it with Western academic approaches to understanding the mammals of Oaxaca’s mountains. This comparison aims to demonstrate the importance and validity of Indigenous TEK alongside Western scientific knowledge. By integrating both ways of knowing, we provide a more complete and detailed description of the mammals of the Chinantla Alta region and show how each perspective supports and supplements the other, offering a truly holistic approach to studying and understanding animals.
09:40
Presentation Format:
Oral (in-person)
Leading ethical change in research and related programs commonly takes shape in ethical codes, which may be through professional associations (e.g., the ISE Code of Ethics) or within organizations (e.g., universities). Within the former, a code of ethics represents a professional standard; in the latter processes such as vetting programs and projects through institutional review boards is common. Codes and processes are considered preventative to uphold legal compliance, representing “codified ethics.” A complementary approach is to strengthen the impact of “lived ethics” that challenge norms of professional practice within an organizational community. Lived ethics increase ethical inquiry about impacts of before, during, and after projects, which we term ethical sufficiency. In this paper, we review the structure and progress of implementing ethical sufficiency plans at Crow Canyon Archaeological Center. We articulate how the concept of ethical sufficiency has been used and what changes are in development with examples from public facing programs and research projects.
10:00
Presentation Format:
Oral (in-person)
As ethnobotanists and biologists work increasingly with historic and contemporary data collected about and with Indigenous Peoples, what are the necessary actions to ensure outcomes are aligned with the FAIR and CARE principles? In this session, participants will gain an understanding of the Local Contexts tools for Indigenous Data Sovereignty and Governance: the Notices, the Labels, and the Hub that enables and deploys them in digital environments. Local Contexts is a global nonprofit that supports Indigenous communities to reassert authority in heritage collections and data. Focusing on Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property, the tools repatriate knowledge and gain control over how data is collected, managed, displayed, accessed, and used in the future. With a focus on examples with Notices and Labels utilized in aquatic research, we will navigate how practitioners can build data infrastructure allowing communities of origin to relate to and assert protocols for data generated by outsider researchers.
10:20
Presentation Format:
Oral (virtual)
Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs), along with many scholars, view collaborative action as imperative in Abya Yala ethnobiology. Drawing on 25 years of work with IPLCs in Venezuela, we highlight five areas: (1) Territories, supporting self‑demarcation and ancestral land rights; (2) Health, culturally grounded malaria and other health-issues control (local diagnosis, prevention, monitoring); (3) Ethno‑education, community‑led literacy, standardized alphabets, local documentation, and autonomous schools; (4) VITEK, methodology to assess intergenerational transmission and change of traditional ecological knowledge; and (5) Community books—locally authored ecological‑historical knowledge. This collaborative approach, embraced by corazonar paradigm strengthens long‑term cultural and biocultural conservation.
Presentations
| Abstract | |
|---|---|
| 09:00 |
Presentation Format:
Oral (in-person)
Since 1992, the Taraco Archaeological Project has endeavored to be a space for collaboration between archaeologists, anthropologists, and Indigenous Aymara community members of the Taraco Peninsula, Bolivia. With the overarching goal of understanding the many aspects of the long-term history of Indigenous livelihoods on the peninsula, the project has always been oriented around ethnobiological queries of human-plant-animal interactions across the landscape. This has presented important opportunities for collaborations around current and historical plant and animal focused activities on the peninsula, with the local Aymara experts as guides for the archaeological and anthropological researchers who hope to understand these activities in the past. Here, we hope to critical explore the ways in which these collaborations can be communicated to broader publics through local museusm, tours, and multimedia to not only help preserve and share the learned knowledge but allow it to play a role in supporting the local economy. |
| 09:20 |
Presentation Format:
Oral (in-person)
In collaboration with the Chinanteco peoples of Oaxaca, Mexico, we began a project several years ago to document the local fauna and create educational materials that support conservation while recognizing the importance of the Chinanteco peoples’ Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK). After a long pause in our collaboration due to other priorities in the local context, we reconnected and resumed the original plan. The project now highlights TEK by comparing it with Western academic approaches to understanding the mammals of Oaxaca’s mountains. This comparison aims to demonstrate the importance and validity of Indigenous TEK alongside Western scientific knowledge. By integrating both ways of knowing, we provide a more complete and detailed description of the mammals of the Chinantla Alta region and show how each perspective supports and supplements the other, offering a truly holistic approach to studying and understanding animals. |
| 09:40 |
Presentation Format:
Oral (in-person)
Leading ethical change in research and related programs commonly takes shape in ethical codes, which may be through professional associations (e.g., the ISE Code of Ethics) or within organizations (e.g., universities). Within the former, a code of ethics represents a professional standard; in the latter processes such as vetting programs and projects through institutional review boards is common. Codes and processes are considered preventative to uphold legal compliance, representing “codified ethics.” A complementary approach is to strengthen the impact of “lived ethics” that challenge norms of professional practice within an organizational community. Lived ethics increase ethical inquiry about impacts of before, during, and after projects, which we term ethical sufficiency. In this paper, we review the structure and progress of implementing ethical sufficiency plans at Crow Canyon Archaeological Center. We articulate how the concept of ethical sufficiency has been used and what changes are in development with examples from public facing programs and research projects. |
| 10:00 |
Presentation Format:
Oral (in-person)
As ethnobotanists and biologists work increasingly with historic and contemporary data collected about and with Indigenous Peoples, what are the necessary actions to ensure outcomes are aligned with the FAIR and CARE principles? In this session, participants will gain an understanding of the Local Contexts tools for Indigenous Data Sovereignty and Governance: the Notices, the Labels, and the Hub that enables and deploys them in digital environments. Local Contexts is a global nonprofit that supports Indigenous communities to reassert authority in heritage collections and data. Focusing on Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property, the tools repatriate knowledge and gain control over how data is collected, managed, displayed, accessed, and used in the future. With a focus on examples with Notices and Labels utilized in aquatic research, we will navigate how practitioners can build data infrastructure allowing communities of origin to relate to and assert protocols for data generated by outsider researchers. |
| 10:20 |
Presentation Format:
Oral (virtual)
Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs), along with many scholars, view collaborative action as imperative in Abya Yala ethnobiology. Drawing on 25 years of work with IPLCs in Venezuela, we highlight five areas: (1) Territories, supporting self‑demarcation and ancestral land rights; (2) Health, culturally grounded malaria and other health-issues control (local diagnosis, prevention, monitoring); (3) Ethno‑education, community‑led literacy, standardized alphabets, local documentation, and autonomous schools; (4) VITEK, methodology to assess intergenerational transmission and change of traditional ecological knowledge; and (5) Community books—locally authored ecological‑historical knowledge. This collaborative approach, embraced by corazonar paradigm strengthens long‑term cultural and biocultural conservation. |