How does social status relate to traditional ecological knowledge?

Abstract

Considering that knowledge transmission processes might be affected by prestige bias, this chapter explores the relation between traditional ecological knowledge and social status. Data collected among three hunter-gatherer societies (the Punan in Borneo, the Baka in the Congo Basin, and the Tsimane' in the Amazon) and regarding three domains of knowledge (medicinal plant, hunting, and agricultural knowledge) suggest that measures of knowledge and skills are associated with an evaluation of the person's knowledge provided by fellow community members, i.e., social status. We highlight that this relation might vary according to the domain of knowledge and might be shaped by other individuals' characteristics, such as own implication in social organization. Moreover, social status might present varied associations with different bodies of knowledge, as it is the case with some specialized traditional ethnomedicinal plant knowledge which is not shared by all the members of a community.