Urban Ethnobotany: theoretical and methodological contributions

Abstract

Urban Ethnobotany studies, among other issues, the botanical knowledge characteristic of the pluricultural contexts that constitute the urban agglomerations. The botanical knowledge and beliefs guides the strategies of selection and consumption of plants, parts thereof and plant products. From the development of a research in the conurbation Buenos Aires-La Plata (Argentina) is assumed that the urban botanical knowledge is a dynamic and complex corpus which includes nontraditional elements and others linked to local family traditions and traditions concerning different groups of immigrants. On this basis, this chapter includes some theoretical reflections and innovative methodological tools to address composition and dynamics of urban botanical knowledge, based on the evaluation of diversity and circulation of plant elements in the studied area, both in the restricted context of the immigrant groups (Bolivian, Chinese) and the general commercial circuit.