Preserving Knowledge from the World's Most Diverse Biological Reservoir
Research focuses on artefacts from the Amazon and will digitise heritage materials and curate content to reach the region's Indigenous people.
Connecting communities of knowledge in Amazonia
Sustainable use of plant resources within the Amazon rainforest is a key priority for human livelihoods and to maintain forest biodiversity. Indigenous peoples of Northwest Amazonia practice effective, sophisticated forms of land management, but these practices are under threat as traditional knowledge is eroded.
Valuable information to address this challenge is contained in biocultural collections - specimens and artefacts showing how humans have used plants and nature – held within and outside Brazil.
This research project brings together an international, interdisciplinary team of Indigenous and non-Indigenous researchers and museum curators to develop a digital portal of biocultural collections to preserve and generate environmental and Indigenous knowledge in Amazonia.Ìý
What we’re researching:
Our focus is on a small group of objects, originally from Northwest Amazonia,, currently held at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and the British Museum, and the Robert Schomburgk and Koch-Grünberg collections at the Ethnologisches Museum Berlin.Ìý
In addition to the selected artefacts from these collections, the digital portal we are developing will include contemporary Indigenous knowledge and protocols for the viewing, circulation and reproduction of these biocultural heritage materials. It will also contain a directory of historical biocultural collections from the Amazon held by institutions outside Brazil.ÌýÌý
We plan to produce a bilingual Portuguese and English policy report and a film, as well as articles and conference presentations. A bilingual project website will offer a one-stop location for the findings, and workshops and other events to reach researchers and Indigenous peoples in the Amazon, as well as museum curators in other parts of Latin America and worldwide.Ìý
“Our project aims to reanimate the artefacts that Spruce sent to Kew Gardens and other British institutions, which have significant potential as data for studies of ethnobotanical knowledge, ecological change and cultural heritage.”
What will the impact be?
Professor Luciana Martins, Department of Culture and Languages, explained, "Our project aims to reanimate the artefacts that Spruce sent to Kew Gardens and other British institutions, which have significant potential as data for studies of ethnobotanical knowledge, ecological change and cultural heritage. Our expectation is that this willÌýcontribute to the development of new methods and policies relating to science, biodiversity and people, opening up the possibility of shared civil society input into development policies, sustainability and local income."
Project Fact-file
- Full project title: Digital Repatriation of Biocultural Collections: Connecting Scientific and Indigenous Communities of Knowledge in AmazoniaÌý
- Project funding: £49,970ÌýÌý[ID KF2\100197]Ìý
- Funder:Ìý
- Length of award: 31 January 2019 to 30 July 2020ÌýÌý
- Supported by:ÌýDepartment of Cultures and LanguagesÌý(School of Arts)
- People: Professor Luciana Martins, Department of Culture and Languages, ÌÇÐÄlogoÈë¿Ú, University of London; Professor Mark Nesbitt,Ìý Dr William Milliken, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; Dr Viviane Stern da Fonseca Kruel,ÌýAloisio Cabalzar,ÌýÌý
Further Information
More about Professor Luciana Martins