What interferes with conducting free lists? A comparative ethnobotanical experiment

Abstract

Background: The free list, also written “freelist”, or “free recall”, is an ethnographic method that characterizes the local knowledge of a population about a given cultural domain. However, there is still much to elucidate about the variables that can influence the number of items that participants cite using this technique. This study applied a casual-comparative experiemental design to analyze whether three months’ time, age and external stimuli influence the similarity of plant free lists applied at different times.Methods: Data was collected from 103 farmers from the rural community Alto dos Canutos, in the municipality of Picos, Piauí state, Brazil.Two free lists were conducted at two different times, with an interval of three months between them. Subsequently, the similarity between the first and second free lists of each participant was calculated using the Jaccard Similarity Index. The Generalized Linear Model (GLM) with binomial errors and stepwise approach was used to analyze the effects of age and external stimuli on information collection when comparing free lists applied at different times.Results: Participants’ age influenced the information that the free lists collected, demonstrating that the older the participants, the lower the similarity among the free lists. Among the external stimuli analyzed, only the presence of third parties influenced the content of the free lists at the time of the interview. However, contrary to expectations, third-party presence positively influenced the similarity of the lists. Conclusion: The results show that the studied variables age and third-party presence can influence the capture of knowledge. These findings warrant future research into the influences' causes and their potential mitigation, e.g., by isolation or by breaking the medicinal plant domain into focused sub-domains and conducting simpler, successive free-lists, which can mitigate memory issues.

Carissa spinarumL.: A Case Study in Ethnobotany and Bioprospecting Research

“…Common ethnobotanical methods may not be culturally appropriate in Australian aboriginal research and this necessitates the development of alternative culturally sensitive study designs [37,57,58]. The use of tools such as free-listing were found to produce variable outcomes, even within a single participant (in separate interviews), or relating to age or the presence of a third party at the interview [219]. Similarly, a Bolivian study found that even subtle changes in the use of methods of free-listing and semi-structured interviews can produce markedly different results [220].…”

Local knowledge about medicinal plants does not influence the self-reported well-being of inhabitants of the semi-arid region of northeastern Brazil

“…In addition, the LKMP recovered from the six communities studied may not represent the full knowledge of an individual since participants may not express all of their LKMP for not remembering it or feeling shy to do it during the interview. The partial communication of LKMP by the participants may result from the influence of different factors, such as the presence of third parties during the interview, and/or social factors like the interviewee's age, as reported by Meireles, Albuquerque, and Medeiros (2021). One way to circumvent such influences would be to perform annual repetitions of the survey in the area.…”