Reshaping the future of ethnobiology research after the COVID-19 pandemic A geographically diverse group of 29 ethnobiologists addresses three common themes in response to the COVID-19 global health crisis: impact on local communities, future interactions between researchers and communities, and new (or renewed) conceptual and/or applied research priorities for ethnobiology.
BioOne Complete (complete.BioOne.org) is a full-text database of 200 subscribed and open-access titles in the biological, ecological, and environmental sciences published by nonprofit societies, associations, museums, institutions, and presses.
In this paper I suggest that it is possible to participate in research as an act of reciprocity; when a community asks a researcher for help on a specific topic, the application of that researcher’s skills can be one of the ways they show appreciation for being welcomed into a place. I also argue that a researcher needs to be sensitive to, and participate in, systems of respect and reciprocity belonging to the people, ancestors, and sentient landscape of the place they are doing research. I critique the extraction of traditional knowledge in the traditional land use consultation industry in Alberta, Canada that is used in place of the Federal Government’s duty to consult First Nations regarding their Treaty rights. As an alternative to traditional land use assessments I provide a description of the methods used in projects that test Fort McKay First Nation and Bigstone Cree First Nation’s wild foods for contaminants resulting from oil sands activities in northern Alberta’s Treaty No. 8 region.
The natural history collections community has made significant strides in the past decade in the digitization of their holdings. Digitization has made the data and corresponding images of collections publicly available to researchers, students, and the public. Data and images are served online by institutions’ local databases, and regional, national, and international aggregators. One challenging aspect in digitizing natural history collections is the presence of offensive language, such as racial slurs in collection and location data. We present findings from a community survey and analysis of data from relevant aggregators to assess the presence of and approach to offensive language in collections data. We also suggest initial guidelines for data warning statements and disclaimers and transcription guidelines to help preserve historical integrity of data while also supporting inclusive and safe workspaces. Please note that in writing about offensive terms found in natural history collections, we use and refer to offensive terms and include images of labels and documents to provide examples.
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