John White
PhD Candidate
Tulane University

Title: Indigenous Conceptualizations of and Interactions with Plant Reproduction, Domestication, and Diversification

Abstract: The loss of food plant biological diversity, associated cultural knowledge and practices, and the adaptive capacities for human subsistence systems contained therein, represent some of the biggest threats to global food security under climate change. This is particularly true in global hotspots of crop and crop wild relative diversity, which often overlay Indigenous territories. While the importance of Indigenous peoples’ contributions to food plant genetic resources have been known for quite some time, there is a pronounced need for contemporary interdisciplinary research on such topics. In particular, the similarities and differences of perspectives and interactions with plant diversification, breeding, and reproduction amongst the world’s many culturally diverse stakeholders remains especially understudied. Such research not only helps to decolonialize plant science, but also provides much needed support for the numerous cross-cultural and collaborative approaches to food plant conservation and science emerging in these centers of diversity. My PhD work with Amazonian Kichwa speaking Runa in the Tropical Andean-Amazonian interface of Ecuador helps address these research needs through over a year of interdisciplinary ethnobotanical research concerning Runa conceptualizations of and interactions with crop and crop wild relative diversification, domestication, and sexual reproduction.

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