Week 3

This week we have worked with our groups on a specific ethnobotanical problem. 

The problem given to my group goes as follows: 

"A remote area of the Amazonian Rainforest, where many others have conducted research. Though remote, the community members are well versed on and averse to encounters with "biopirates." Their primary concerns are maintaining land rights and income generation." 

We are supposed to describe where we will work/ with whom will we work and the goals of our research. 

Our group has chosen to work with the Yanomami tribe of southern Venezuela and Northern Brazil. 

Our group is going to work on a powerpoint and a paper to present. 

We established research questions and learning objectives. 

 

Research Questions:

• How is gold mining affecting the Yanomami's accessibility to its own medicine?
• What is the correlation between knowledge of medicinal plants and accessibility
• With less accessibility to medicinal plants, there is less knowledge in the community about medicinal plant use. 
• Is outside influence negatively correlated to quantity of traditional plant knowledge?
• Who in the community is retaining the traditional plant knowledge?

Learning Objectives: assigned to each group member. 

1. What protocol is important to follow before we arrive? -ksd
2. What are ethnographic approaches and tools used? -ksd
3. How do ethnobotanists go about discovering what plants are useful in the area? -peter
4. How do researchers establish rapport? - sam
5. What inter-/intracultural relations  do researchers need to pay attention to when considering methodological and ethical approach research? -lck

Here is the answer to my learning objective. 

How do researchers establish rapport?

Establishing rapport can be a lengthy process and should not be rushed. The first task is to explore the culture and make observations of how rapport is built and defined by the specific culture. Ethnobotanists should not expect lots of information right at the start and should ease in to the more revealing questions. It is important for the ethnobotanist to develop a good relationship with the informant first. Starting off with small questions, covering topics that both the interviewer and the informant can relate to, can do this. It is also important that while establishing rapport, that the ethnobotanist pays close attention to cultural boundaries and ways of communication.