Divergent trajectories of local ecological knowledge among divided communities: insights from Hutsuls and Romanians of Bukovina (Romania and Ukraine)

• Autores: Giulia Mattalia
• Directores de la Tesis: Victòria Reyes García (dir. tes.)
• Lectura: En la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona ( España ) en 2022
• Idioma: inglés
• Tribunal Calificador de la Tesis: Joan Vallès Xirau (presid.), Piero Bruschi (secret.), Manuel Pardo de Santayana Gómez de Olea (voc.)
• Programa de doctorado: Programa de Doctorado en Ciencia y Tecnología Ambientales por la Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona
• Materias:
  • Ciencias tecnológicas
    • Ingeniería y tecnología del medio ambiente
• Enlaces
  • Tesis en acceso abierto en: TESEO
• Resumen

  • Plants are crucial for the survival of the humankind. The relationship between people and plants has evolved over centuries, shaped by specific geographical, ecological, social, cultural, economic and political contexts in which people and plants are found. Indeed, it is widely acknowledged that local ecological knowledge systems are not static, but constantly evolve, adapting to new ecological, social, cultural and political conditions. It is also recognized that these local knowledge systems are being increasingly jeopardized by the rapid environmental and socio-economic changes we see today. Among the various socioeconomic changes that affect local knowledge, institutional policies have received little scholarly attention, although they can have important impacts on local knowledge. In particular, the impact of policies on local knowledge has only been partially studied in Europe, with a couple of investigations addressing cross-border ethnobotanical knowledge. In this context, this dissertation aims to further our understanding of how political borders affect local knowledge of the use of wild food and medicinal plants and its transmission, as well as local environmental perceptions. To this end, I worked in the territory of Bukovina, a historical region of Eastern Europe united until the 1940s, when it was divided between the Soviet Union and the Socialist Republic of Romania, currently Ukraine and Romania. Specifically, in this multicultural region, I focused on cross-border communities of Hutsuls and Romanians. The 135 semi-structured interviews conducted in summers 2018 and 2019 on the use of wild food and medicinal plants, the transmission of such knowledge, and the perception of forest and its resources, revealed three main divergences that constitute the three central chapters of this dissertation. First, the corpora of knowledge related to plants, especially medicinal plants, are richer among Hutsuls and Romanians living in Ukraine than among Hutsuls and Romanians living in Romania. I argue that this difference originates in the divergent political (and multilingual) context of the two countries, with only Ukraine being influenced by Soviet-derived elements. Second, ethnobotanical knowledge transmission occurs in divergent forms across the border. Hutsuls and especially Romanians living in Ukraine, in addition to information transmitted 3 orally, significantly rely on written and visual sources for obtaining information regarding wild food and medicinal plants. Conversely, in Romania, this information is mainly transmitted orally within the family or by local elders. Third, Hutsuls living across the border share perceptions of forest benefits but differ in their perceptions of the drivers of forest change, possibly due to the diverging political contexts in which they live, and thus diverging forest management policies. In addition, possibly as a result of different socio-economic conditions, Hutsuls living in Ukraine rely more on forest medicinal plants than do Hutsuls living in Romania. In conclusion, the results of this work suggest that in the context of Bukovina, and possibly beyond it, the creation of new political boundaries can result in different corpora of local knowledge related to wild food and medicinal plants, divergent trajectories of ethnobotanical knowledge transmission strategies, and dissimilar perceptions and use of relevant milieux. I argue that such dissymmetry can be due to the different socio-economic contexts created as a result of different institutional policies. Further research in other geographical contexts with similar cross-border geopolitical situations is required to confirm the results of this work.