Living in a global world: ethnobotany, local knowledge and sustainability. 58th Annual Meeting of the Society for Economic Botany: book of abstracts

It gives us great pleasure to welcome you to the 58th Annual Meeting of the Society for Economic Botany (SEB) and the 2nd Hispano-Portuguese Meeting on Ethnobiology (II EHPE), a joint event aiming at connecting economic botanists and ethnobiologists from all over the world. The Society for Economic Botany (SEB) was established in 1959 and the annual meeting brings together people interested in the past, present, and future uses of plants, and the relationship between plants and human societies. SEB fosters and encourages scientific research and education in the transdisciplinary field of economic botany. With members from across the U.S.A. and more than 64 countries around the globe, SEB serves as the world’s largest and most-respected professional society for individuals who are concerned with basic botanical, as well as, with agronomical, anthropological, phytochemical, ethnological and many others studies of plants known to be useful or those which may have potential uses so far undeveloped. Since 1960, SEB Annual Meetings provide a stimulating milieu for scientific exchange amongst SEB members and researchers from different countries and regions. The Hispano-Portuguese Meeting on Ethnobiology (EHPE) highlights previous collaborations between Hispano-Portuguese ethnobiologists and aims to involve the global Hispanic-Portuguese-speaking communities to the greatest extent possible. Albacete, Castilla La Mancha, Spain, hosted the I EHPE in 2010, simultaneously with the 11th Congress of the International Society of Ethnopharmacology (ISE 2010). In Albacete, about 80 Hispano-Portuguese speakers with diverse backgrounds and interest, researching in Europe, South America, Africa and Asia, presented their works and discussed wider importance of Ethnobiological research. Six years later, we promote a second meeting (II EHPE) aiming at updating and strengthening networks between different research groups, experts, students and any people interested in interdisciplinary ethno biological approaches. In 2017, the 58th SEB Annual Meeting and the 2nd Hispano-Portuguese Meeting on Ethnobiology are held in the city of Bragança, Portugal within an ecological and culturally fascinating environment, organized by the Mountain Research Centre (CIMO) of the Polytechnic Institute of Bragança (IPB) and the Society for Economic Botany (SEB) with the active involvement of local, national and international entities. Several institutions sponsored a comprehensive programme: the William L. Brown Center (USA), Springer Nature (UK), Regional Northern Culture Directorate (DRCN, Portugal), Bragança Municipality (CMB, Portugal), Centro Ciencia Viva de Bragança (Portugal) and Fundação Caixa CA, Bragança (Portugal). The conference theme Living in a global world: ethnobotany, local knowledge and sustainability gathered 230 delegates from 41 countries of Africa, Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceania. A total of 230 abstracts were submitted: 12 plenary lectures and special addresses, 152 papers and 66 posters. Bringing together the European community and a broader international community of scientists and stakeholders, this joint event creates a unique opportunity for individuals and institutions to share experiences and to establish information and collaboration networks, taking advantage of a multicultural, friendly and pleasant environment. Thank you for your contributions and support! We are very grateful to those who helped and contributed to achieve this event.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A Seat at My Table

At dinner, our interactions with the food, the table settings, and other diners show how we engage with the material world. Table manners and etiquette are a window into a convivial life. As a beginner potter and woodworker, I made dining furniture, dishes, and utensils, to contemplate a meaningful sense of place in the everyday. Participating in what Hannah Arendt calls the vita activa, I explore how the objects I make become tangible manifestations of the hands that touch them. The table setting forms the backdrop for dinner, framing the space, the routine, and the ritual we inhabit every day. They invite us to attend to the food and to the people we share a meal with. In doing so, we bring the forces that gather the meal to light. There are palpable traces of humidity, mineral content, and the gentle touch of the hand in the ceramics. Weather movements, disease, and growth patterns are embodied in the grain of the wood. Each object translates a microcosm to the table, welcoming diners to touch, smell, and taste the meal we share together

Creating 'kropkrua' in the kitchen: an ethnography of female Thai chefs in two London Thai restaurants

This thesis was submitted for the award of Master of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University LondonThis research explores the experience of Thai female immigrants who are working in the kitchens of Thaitime restaurant at both the Wandsworth and Wimbledon branches. Through analysis of the life stories of the chefs, it is clear that both economic and cultural factors are primary reasons for transnational migration. Isan is the birthplace of seventy percent of the chefs and the region is considered one of the poorest parts of Thailand, with low-income rates and high rates of out-migration. The chefs follow existing gendered role expectations by participating in transnational migration and sending remittances back to their parents. The chefs from Isan mostly immigrate via a spouse visa or work permit, while the chefs from central Thailand mostly start their journey with a student visa. As an ethnographic study, the primary tool of data collection has been through participant observation of the chefs’ working routines. These observations revealed that the kitchens have two parallel dynamics. On one hand, kitchens are operated in terms of commercial restaurant standards. On the other hand, they work in relation to Thai family structures, where chefs in higher positions tend to employ the idealistic stereotype of ‘mother’. This is accomplished by performing the maternal role of nurturing children through the act of cooking and feeding. Thaitime kitchens are one of the places where Thai social structures and cultural practices are exercised. However, when the chefs go into the world outside, they continue to limit themselves to places that hold cultural and emotional connections to their homeland. The majority of visits center around accommodations, the Thai temple, ethnic grocery shops, Thai massage shops, and the betting shops. The ethnography and narratives discussed in this research suggest that Thai female migrants cannot simply be stereotyped as dependent spouses. Rather, their lives are complex and include many different aspects apart from married life. The chefs also participate in the labor market and engage with London’s urban setting, constructing social relations, negotiating identities and situating themselves in the context of the United Kingdom

Jules Verne's textual mapping: plotting geography

Jules Verne designed his series of Voyages extraordinaires around the premise of painting or depicting the earth. It is with this in mind that I explore the idea that Verne is a geographical writer whose style reproduces a voyage, or an itinerary, that creates overlap, or a space of communication, between the ordinary and the fictional worlds. The product of this overlap, or this style, is what I term the textual map, which is a metaphor for the reading experience as a compilation of movements through a geographical location described textually. The textual map differs from the literary map, therefore, because rather than linking to or identifying a location in order to assign it a relative place, it assumes a perspective that is at the ground level so as to describe movement through instead of over a geographical location. The textual map and the associated literary and geographical terminology express Verne’s style that is nonlinear, an amalgam of his own research, and the impressionistic manner by which he combines descriptive geographical visions to convey a space rather than a place, as expressed by de Certeau. Specifically, I concentrate on Deux Ans de vacances, Le Phare du bout du monde and En Magellanie, three of the Voyages extraordinaires and in which Verne visits the most southern area of South America. With each of these textual maps, Verne employs a textual legend, or a key to reading the geographical novel, and a way for the author to write a perspective that is part of the geography rather than a view of it from a distance. I classify three categories of the legend: the identification of the island location, the movements of the characters who inhabit the island and the author’s own narrative voice. Studying these aspects of Verne’s writing and the textual map, or studying Verne as a geographical author, allows for an interdisciplinary approach to reading an author who was himself interdisciplinary in the sense that he crossed traditional lines of discourse and applied his research in a product-oriented manner