Some Field Methods in Medical Ethnobiology

Abstract

The authors provide a summary of methods that they have used in their long-term interdisciplinary research that incorporates a series of semi-independent, complementary methods of data collection derived from medical anthropology, ethnobotany, and ethnopharmacology. Discussion begins with the first step in research with human subjects, the acquisition of prior informed consent; they then outline the theoretical postulates underlying their methodological approach. Medical anthropological methods include building databases of ethnoanatomical terms and named health conditions. Ethnoepidemiological surveys can then establish the perceived frequency and cultural salience of the health problems named in the databases. The ethnomedical and ethnobotanical data provide an ethnopharmacopoeia of medicinal plants that become the basis for documentation of the details of selection and preparation and administration or ethnoformulary. The results of these integrated disciplinary studies can be returned to the study population for home use, small-scale local production as cottage industries, and larger commercial production for sustained economic development.