A Tribute to Claudine Friedberg: Ethnoscience, taxonomies and interdisciplinarity

Abstract

As a tribute to Claudine Friedberg, who passed away on July 27, 2018, a day of conferences and testimonies was convened at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris on November 16, 2018. Family, friends, colleagues and former doctoral students gathered from France as well as from the United Kingdom, Indonesia and Portugal. A scientific conference was organized to honour the memory of this outstanding researcher, echoing the wealth of debates and exchanges which she led and stimulated over several decades of her scientific work. Ethnoscience, also referred to as "the new ethnography" at its birth in the 1950s, describes and analyses the range and nature of indigenous systems of knowledge. Through its capacity to innovate and address emerging challenges, this scientific discipline has maintained its relevance to this day. Its initial focus, set within the field of cognitive anthropology with ties to linguistics, philosophy and the natural sciences, included indigenous denomination and classification of natural objects (ethnobotany, ethnozoology, ethnomedicine analysed and compared with scientific taxonomies). Nowadays, under various designations such as local or indigenous knowledge, it also encompasses interventions within the framework of major international conventions, including the conservation of biodiversity and its traditional management by indigenous peoples and local communities.