DOI - Mendel University Press

DOI identifiers

DOI: 10.11118/978-80-7509-881-8-0133

A Short Essay on Ethnobotany in Mexico and Central America

M. Halbich

This paper deals with a brief historical sketch of ethnobotany and the use of some medicinal plants in Mexico, and in a broader sense, in so-called Mesoamerica and some areas of Central America (especially Guatemala and Belize). Particular attention is paid to the fact that ethnobotany is not only part of ethnoscience, but also of ecological anthropology and political economy, and it is also associated with multispecies ethnography, in which plants and other organisms (e.g. mushrooms) become equal subjects of anthropological research, like animals in human animal studies. The paper focuses primarily on Mexico, where ethnobotanical research has its roots in early colonial times. It outlines some aspects of similarly-focused researchers in Guatemala and Belize, which is primarily bound with different Mayan groups. In conclusion, it concentrates on a particular perspective that ethnobotanical and ethnopharmacological research offers in this area.

Keywords: Mexico, Mesoamerica, multispecies ethnography, peyote, mobile medicine

pages: 133-141, Published: 2014, online: 2022



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