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Introduction to Ethnobiology pp 69–74Cite as

An Ethnobiology of Change

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Abstract

In contrast with the long-held ethnobiological tradition conceptualizing knowledge systems as static and continuous, in recent decades the discipline has reemerged with a focus on the dynamic character of local environmental knowledge (LEK). This new era in ethnobiology started with studies documenting the erosion and loss of local knowledge systems around the world and is now shifting toward the understanding of the ability of LEK systems to adapt to new social-ecological conditions. Nourishing from resilience theory, new ethnobiological research points toward the adaptive capacity of LEK systems, also addressing the structural constraints of LEK adaptation in the face of ever-encroaching global environmental change. This chapter provides a historical view of the literature addressing change and adaptation of LEK systems and identifies critical tasks for future ethnobiological research, as the discipline keeps expanding into new understandings of the changing human-biota relationships in novel social-ecological scenarios.

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Acknowledgments

The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013)/ERC grant agreement nr. FP7-261971-LEK. Á. F.-L. was also supported by the Academy of Finland (grant agreement 292765). We thank A. Pyhälä for comments to a previous version of this chapter.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals (ICTA), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

    Álvaro Fernández-Llamazares PhD & Victoria Reyes-García PhD

  2. Department of Biosciences, Metapopulation Research Centre (MRC), University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    Álvaro Fernández-Llamazares PhD

  3. Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ICREA), Barcelona, Spain

    Victoria Reyes-García PhD

Authors
  1. Álvaro Fernández-Llamazares PhD
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  2. Victoria Reyes-García PhD
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Álvaro Fernández-Llamazares PhD .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Universidade Federal Rural de Pernambuco, Recife, Brazil

    Ulysses Paulino Albuquerque

  2. Campina Grande, Universidade Estadual da Paraíba, Campina Grande, Paraíba, Brazil

    Rômulo Romeu Nóbrega Alves

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Fernández-Llamazares, Á., Reyes-García, V. (2016). An Ethnobiology of Change. In: Albuquerque, U., Nóbrega Alves, R. (eds) Introduction to Ethnobiology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28155-1_11

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