Length of residence, age and patterns of medicinal plant knowledge and use among women in the urban Amazon

Wayland, Coral; Walker, Lisa

doi:10.1186/1746-4269-10-25

Cited by 18 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 41 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Urbanisation brings new health challenges resulting from ease of contagion, maintenance of disease due to high population densities and stress-related ailments [ 2 ]. Although biomedicine is often easily available in urban settings, traditional medicines can still be the most convenient and affordable health care resource [ 2 , 3 ]. Similar to people in rural areas, urban dwellers can hold rich medicinal plant knowledge.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Medicinal plants used by women in Mecca: urban, Muslim and gendered knowledge

Alqethami

Hawkins

Teixidor‐Toneu

2017

J Ethnobiology Ethnomedicine

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

BackgroundThis study explores medicinal plant knowledge and use among Muslim women in the city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Ethnobotanical research in the region has focused on rural populations and male herbal healers in cities, and based on these few studies, it is suggested that medicinal plant knowledge may be eroding. Here, we document lay, female knowledge of medicinal plants in an urban centre, interpreting findings in the light of the growing field of urban ethnobotany and gendered knowledge and in an Islamic context.MethodsFree-listing, structured and semi-structured interviews were used to document the extent of medicinal plant knowledge among 32 Meccan women. Vernacular names, modes of preparation and application, intended therapeutic use and emic toxicological remarks were recorded. Women were asked where they learnt about medicinal plants and if and when they preferred using medicinal plants over biomedical resources. Prior informed consent was always obtained. We compared the list of medicinal plants used by these Meccan women with medicinal plants previously documented in published literature.ResultsOne hundred eighteen vernacular names were collected, corresponding to approximately 110 plants, including one algae. Of these, 95 were identified at the species level and 39 (41%) had not been previously cited in Saudi Arabian medicinal plant literature. Almost one half of the plants cited are food and flavouring plants. Meccan women interviewed learn about medicinal plants from their social network, mass media and written sources, and combine biomedical and medicinal plant health care. However, younger women more often prefer biomedical resources and learn from written sources and mass media.ConclusionsThe fairly small number of interviews conducted in this study was sufficient to reveal the singular body of medicinal plant knowledge held by women in Mecca and applied to treat common ailments. Plant availability in local shops and markets and inclusion in religious texts seem to shape the botanical diversity used by the Meccan women interviewed, and the use of foods and spices medicinally could be a global feature of urban ethnobotany. Ethnobotanical knowledge among women in Islamic communities may be changing due to access to mass media and biomedicine. We recognise the lack of documentation of the diversity of medicinal plant knowledge in the Arabian Peninsula and an opportunity to better understand gendered urban and rural knowledge.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recent studies evidence the dynamism and adaptive nature of urban medicinal plant knowledge (e.g. [ 3 – 7 ]), challenging views that such knowledge is lost in cities.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Medicinal plants used by women in Mecca: urban, Muslim and gendered knowledge

Alqethami

Hawkins

Teixidor‐Toneu

2017

J Ethnobiology Ethnomedicine

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…We differentiate between knowledge and use of medicinal plants because previous research indicates that the two do not necessarily overlap and medicinal plant knowledge may not be an accurate proxy for the actual use of medicinal plants and vice versa (Reyes-García et al 2005; Wayland and Walker 2014). …”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gendered medicinal plant knowledge contributions to adaptive capacity and health sovereignty in Amazonia

Díaz-Reviriego

Fernández‐Llamazares

Salpeteur

et al. 2016

Ambio

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Local medical systems are key elements of social-ecological systems as they provide culturally appropriate and locally accessible health care options, especially for populations with scarce access to biomedicine. The adaptive capacity of local medical systems generally rests on two pillars: species diversity and a robust local knowledge system, both threatened by local and global environmental change. We first present a conceptual framework to guide the assessment of knowledge diversity and redundancy in local medicinal knowledge systems through a gender lens. Then, we apply this conceptual framework to our research on the local medicinal plant knowledge of the Tsimane’ Amerindians. Our results suggest that Tsimane’ medicinal plant knowledge is gendered and that the frequency of reported ailments and the redundancy of knowledge used to treat them are positively associated. We discuss the implications of knowledge diversity and redundancy for local knowledge systems’ adaptive capacity, resilience, and health sovereignty.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s13280-016-0826-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

show abstract

“…However, the dynamism of the knowledge that is related to plant resources needs to be acknowledged. For example, in an urban area of Rio Branco (Brazilian Amazon), Wayland & Walker (2014) showed that while plant medicines are widely used and recognized as being better than industrialized drugs, no differences were identified between the knowledge that younger and older people had concerning plants, yet, older people use more medicinal plants than younger people. Thus, plant knowledge persists in these heterogeneous and dynamic environments that are marked by rural-urban gradients.…”

Section: Research Abstractmentioning

confidence: 99%