The Basic Assumptions of Ethnoscience

Werner, Oswald

doi:10.1515/semi.1969.1.3.329

Cited by 19 publications

(9 citation statements)

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“…Finally, deciding how to define and analyse cultural sharing is not a simple matter, especially for foraging in multicultural North American societies (Ellen 1979). One possibility is to consider culture as the set theoretical intersection of competences (Werner 1969) and employ a cultural consensus modelling technique (Romney et al 1986(Romney et al , 1987. However, foraging data typically violate cultural consensus model assumptions.…”

Section: Techniquesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Childhood foraging as regional culture: some implications for conservation policy

Chipeniuk

1998

Envir. Conserv.

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Natural resource planning theory now accepts that laypersons may acquire scientifically correct knowledge of nature by informal means and that sense of place, or ecological identity, motivates citizens to assume personal responsibility for their own bioregion. Previous research has identified childhood foraging, that is, searching for and using wild plants and animals of distinguishable kinds, as one informal means by which citizens learn about local ecosystems, but ethnographic evidence suggests foraging may also contribute substantially to the development of ecological identity. Does foraging reflect the ecological characteristics of local bioregions closely enough to structure ecological identity in industrial populations too? By way of addressing this question, studies were conducted to test predictions about the foraging repertoires of people growing up in two separate, but related, bioregions of Canada, centred on Niagara and Ottawa respectively. The most important of these predictions were, first, that regional patterns of foraging experience would correspond to regional ecological patterns, and second, that foraging repertoires would evince within-region similarities and between-region differences. Results confirm that the childhood foraging experience of ordinary Canadian citizens responds to important ecological parameters at the regional scale and in so doing constitutes an aspect of place-specific culture. These findings have a bearing on conservation policy, particularly for multicultural societies.

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Section: Techniquesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Childhood foraging as regional culture: some implications for conservation policy

Chipeniuk

1998

Envir. Conserv.

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“…"world view" (Black 1973), "belief systems" (DAndrade et al 1972), " t h o u g h t world" (Whorf 1956). a n d "ethnographic dictionary" (Werner 1969) all have, as Campbell (1963) observes, essentially the same referent -a sensory/cognitive representation of the world whose organization exerts various degrees of influence on behavior. When used to study culture, these concepts refer to the sensory/cognitive organization characteristic of a particular group with common experiences, direct and vicarious, that is, a group-specific frame of reference.…”

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confidence: 99%

Implicit Culture and Psychocultural Distance

Szalay¹,

Maday

1983

American Anthropologist

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IMPLICIT CULTURE-THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON"Culture is not an exotic notion studied by a select group of anthropologists in the South Seas. It is a mold in which we are all cast, and it controls our daily lives in many unsuspected ways" (Hall 1959:30),manyof which are"out-ofawareness" and therefore beyond the conscious control of the individual. What is outside of awareness is implicit, in contrast with the explicit and easily observable behavior readily described by thousands of anthropological studies. Implicit culture has been here all the time, like the dark side of the moon, but we have had neither the interest nor the research capabilities for its exploration. The concept of implicit culture refers to the psychological dispositions, perceptions, and motivations which are shared by people with similar backgrounds and experiences and which lend organization and direction to overt behavior. Its powerful influence and the hidden nature of this influence make the study of implicit culture particularly exciting and demanding.In a somewhat oversimplified way, we venture to say that if even a fraction of the influence anthropologists attribute to culture were to be taken seriously, every scholar and institution concerned with contemporary human problems would recognize the need for knowing human psychocultural dispositions. (Of course, they would have to rely, faute de mzewc, on what cultural anthropology offers.) Obviously, this is not the case at present, not because anthropologists are wrong about the power of cultural forces or because these forces do not impinge on various domains of life, but because these forces are hidden (subconscious). Thus, it would appear that the ethnographic description of cultures is not an end but an important part of the larger task of discovery and description of both implicit and explicit culture. Now that observable behavior in many cultures has been described, the way is open for a new approach-the investigation of the factors that underlie and determine that behavior. Such a reorientation seems promising if only because of the virtually unlimited role that psychocultural dispositions play in all domains of human life and interpersonal or intergroup relations, from family to government.Many factors have discouraged behavioral scientists from undertaking studies of implicit culture. Some of these factors are: the tendency to underestimate the extent to which we share basic views, perspectives, and priorities with other members of our own culture; the tendency to assume that observable differences in physical appearance (e.g., skin pigmentation) or living conditions (e.g., rich, poor) within our own culture are indicators of major differences in world views; and the tendency to underestimate the depth and scope of differences in world views between people of different cultures. The consequences of these tendencies are frequently additive in undesirable ways.

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“…According to this model, all available information on the surveyed subject is to be considered [ 40 ]. For checking their reliability, interviews were conducted both in synchronous situations, with the same question being asked to different individuals in a short interval of time, and diachronic situations, when the same question was asked to the same individual in a long time interval [ 41 ].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ethnotaxonomy of birds by the inhabitants of Pedra Branca Village, Santa Teresinha municipality, Bahia state, Brazil

Loss

Neto

Machado

et al. 2014

J Ethnobiology Ethnomedicine

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BackgroundStudies on popular names of birds help to understand the relationship between human beings and birds and it also contributes to the field of ornithology.MethodsThis study aims to register the ethnotaxonomy of birds in the village of Pedra Branca, Santa Teresinha municipality, Bahia State, Brazil, by cataloguing and identifying their popular names, besides understanding the ethnoclassification system of local bird species. The ethno-ornithological data were obtained by means of semi-structured open interviews, and projective tests.ResultsWe interviewed 48 residents and, in order to identify species, we chose five informants with a more detailed knowledge on local avifauna. We registered 139 common names, distributed into 108 ethnospecies and 33 synonyms, referring to 117 species. Nomenclatural criteria more frequently used were vocalization and coloring patterns. Following Berlin’s principles of ethnobiological classification, three hierarchical levels were registered: life form, generic and specific, with three types of correspondence between Linnaean and folk classification systems. The bird life form (“pássaro” in Portuguese) was associated only to wild species.ConclusionsThe ethno-ornithological research in Pedra Branca Village has contributed with new information on popular nomenclature of birds and their etymology, showing that folk knowledge on birds is conveyed within the community.

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The Basic Assumptions of Ethnoscience

Cited by 19 publications

References 0 publications

Childhood foraging as regional culture: some implications for conservation policy

Childhood foraging as regional culture: some implications for conservation policy

Implicit Culture and Psychocultural Distance

Ethnotaxonomy of birds by the inhabitants of Pedra Branca Village, Santa Teresinha municipality, Bahia state, Brazil

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