Nature(s) in Construction

This book provides the state of the art of ethnobiology in Argentina and related Latin American countries, highlighting timely trends and topics. It synthesizes studies resulting from the III Jornadas Argentinas de Etnobiología y Sociedad (III JAES—3rd Argentinian Meeting of Ethnobiology and Society), convened in La Plata in 2021. As a relatively new academic development, ethnobiology integrates approaches from different points of view, such as biology, anthropology, geography, history, linguistics, and, in a crucial recent advance, local perspectives. Consequently, this volume contains 33 contributions from 86 authors of different countries, orientations, and disciplines—but all related to interrelationships between people/s and the natural environment.

Chapters cover a diverse array of topics, ranging from biocultural relationships and their historical construction through time to conservation of biocultural and agrodiversity, ethnomycology, ethnophycology, and meliponiculture and beyond. The volume’s main goal is to propitiate the preservation of biocultural diversity through the application of ethnobiological wisdom in a global context characterized by the accelerated loss of traditional knowledge. The contributions aim to transcend the nature/culture dichotomy, emphasizing the inextricable relationship between communities and their environment and the importance of acting jointly in the construction of the inhabited landscape and local identity.