XXI. Launched! A Celebration of Recent Books in Ethnobiology and Beyond
XXI. Launched! A Celebration of Recent Books in Ethnobiology and Beyond
Session Type:
Roundtable
Session Date and Time:
Friday, 23 May, 2025 - 12:15 to 13:15
Primary Organizer:
Sarah Walshaw
Email address:
Books are the culmination of years of research and writing and their authors deserve to be celebrated and learned from! We invite recent authors from across the ethnobiology spectrum to join us to share a little about the goals of your work and the process of crafting a book project. Monographs, edited volumes, original research, collections, cookbooks, and related creative works are welcome!
In this session attendees will have the opportunity to learn about recently published volumes and hear from authors directly about the processes involved and how the end product was achieved. This is a great way to learn about the latest works, find that new reading for an upcoming class, or find mentorship for your own book-in-the-making!
Presentations
| Abstract | |
|---|---|
| 12:15 |
Presentation Format:
Oral (in-person)
This book project began with a dissertation project that incorporated both ethnobotanical and archaeolobotanical datasets on Indigenous farming in the Lake Titicaca basin of Bolivia. The work of transforming dissertation chapters that separated ethnographic and archaeological data of farming into more coherent units of agricultural taskscapes over varied temporal scales was challenging but fun. I am happy to share the process of writing, rewriting, and thinking outside of the box of typical archaeological narrative styles, as well as any other questions future book-writers hope to discuss. |
| 12:30 |
Presentation Format:
Oral (in-person)
Feeding Cahokia (University of Alabama Press, 2019) was inspired years ago by Gary Paul Nabhan. Gary told me he searched through every book in the gift shop at Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site and found nothing pertaining to the Eastern Agricultural Complex that was accessible to the general public. It hit me that I could write that book, and finally I did. Ancient Cahokia and the surrounding Mississippi River valley region serve as ideal settings for demonstrating that Indigenous farming in eastern North America was diverse and sophisticated and that women were the primary farmers. Publishing a book is usually slower than placing articles in academic journals, but a book can reach unexpected readers and bring rewards beyond institutional advancement. |
| 12:45 |
Presentation Format:
Oral (in-person)
This book describes the traditional use of wild plants among the Arikara (Sahnish) for food, medicine, craft, and other uses. The Arikara grew corn, hunted and foraged, and traded with other tribes in the northern Great Plains. Their villages were located along the Missouri River in northern South Dakota and North Dakota. Today, many of them live at Fort Berthold Reservation, North Dakota, as part of the MHA (Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara) Nation. We document the use of 106 species from 31 plant families, based primarily on the work of Melvin Gilmore, who recorded Arikara ethnobotany from 1916 to 1935. The work serves as an important regional ethnobotany of the Arikara Tribe, one of the most influential on the Northern Plains, and should be of great interest to ethnobotanists, ethnomedical practitioners, historians, and other Indigenous Peoples. More importantly, this book is for the Arikara people of all ages as documentation of, and reconnection to, their cultural heritage. |