Ethnophycology: when names reflect seaweed harvester's knowledge and practices

If numerous research in ethnobiology have addressed the link between human societies and a specific part of the living world - mushrooms and ethnomycology, fish and ethnoichtyology - an important relationship for many coastal societies seems hardly studied: the one with seaweed.

We intend to lay the foundations for an ethnophycology - knowledge, skills and representation related to seaweeds - based on the analysis of algal names collected during ethnographic observations and interviews conducted with collectors during an eight-month fieldwork in Brittany (France).

Practiced for centuries in this coastal area, seaweed collecting has subjected of profound socio-economic and technical changes. It brought new tools, new species harvested, new knowledge and new practices. The names used reflect the dynamics of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) developed by the collectors, as well as the hybridization process.