The current status of ethnobiology in Ecuador

Abstract

This arcle gives an account of the current status of ethnobiology in Ecuador. Our goal is a generalized diagnosis of Lan America’s ethnobiological research producon, which portrays Ecuadorian ethnobiology as praccally non-existent. We perform an updated search of online databases, using a range of keywords, to show that elements of an ethnobiological research program are indeed present in Ecuadorian scholarship. While ethnobotany is the most developed sub-discipline of ethnobiology in Ecuador, there is also research on ethnomedicine, ethnozoology, and, to a lesser extent, ethnomycology. The development of these sub-disciplines promotes further ethnobiological scholarship in Ecuador. Beyond these sub-disciplines, ethnobiology is interwoven with contemporary anthropological accounts that emphasize the relaonships between nature and culture and shine a light on the epistemic plurality of ethnobiology. If ethnobiology in Ecuador is disnguished by an epistemic plurality—understood through these different styles of reasoning—then it can be characterized without being confined to sub-disciplines with the ethno- prefix.