Documenting the Ethnobiology of Mexico and Central America: A Digital Portal for Collaborative Research

FAIN: HAA-258602-18

Gettysburg College (Gettysburg, PA 17325-1483)
Jonathan D. Amith (Project Director: May 2017 to October 2024)

The further development of a database and web portal that would aggregate indigenous linguistic information relevant to Mesoamerican flora and fauna.

This project will develop a web portal, Documenting the Ethnobiology of Mexico and Central America, designed to forge an innovative web-based environment for multidisciplinary and multiethnic collaboration among anthropologists and linguists studying traditional ecological knowledge; biologists interested in collections mostly from poorly explored areas; and Indigenous communities and scholars who want to document and preserve traditional knowledge of local flora and fauna. This project will expand Symbiota, a widely used open source content management system for curating specimen- and observation-based biodiversity data, for use by humanities scholars and professionals by developing standards for tagging ethnobiological data, data that crosses thresholds separating the humanities, social science and natural science. By making available research on native nomenclature, classification, and use of flora and fauna, it will disseminate material key to understanding the cultural history of Indigenous Mexican populations.

Associated Products

DEMCA: Documenting the Ethnobiology of Mexico and Central America (Web Resource)
Title: DEMCA: Documenting the Ethnobiology of Mexico and Central America
Author: Jonathan D. Amith
Abstract: DEMCA: Documenting Ethnobiology in Mexico and Central America (demca.mesolex.org) is a data portal in development for the presentation, exchange and discussion of traditional ecological knowledge, particularly the nomenclature, classification and symbolic and economic use of flora and fauna in Indigenous communities of this region. It will provide users registered as Project Managers or Community Liaisons with a mechanism to upload and share their own materials (textual, photographic, and audio) and to offer these materials for identification and commentary by the DEMCA community of users. Registered users will be able to search or browse DEMCA's resources through linguistic means (e.g, Indigenous nomenclature, the semantics of plant and animal names), project or community filters, functional uses (e.g, fencing, ointments), collection data (e.g., altitude), and Western nomenclature (e.g, by binomial name, browsing by genus). Eventually users will be able to tag entries, create and store records in personalized databases, and download these sets of linked entries to their computer. Audio recordings of narratives and discussions in Indigenous languages on local flora and fauna will be accessible through continuous or line-by-line playback and the contents will be displayed in transcription and translation (Spanish) formats. Eventually video will be incorporated. Development of the DEMCA data portal has been supported by the following programs: National Endowment for the Humanities Office of Digital Humanities Level 1 and Level 2 grants, National Science Foundation, Documentation of Endangered Languages Program, National Endowment for the Humanities Division of Preservation and Access, and the Endangered Language Documentation Programme. Software is based on Symbiota, data and web design by Civic Actions (for more details on specific awards, see Acknowledgements. Usage Policy. Copyright © 2016.
Year: 2018
Primary URL: http://demca.mesolex.org
Primary URL Description: DEMCA: Documenting the Ethnobiology of Mexico and Central America is a Symbiota-based portal that presents the cumulative ethnobotanical research of Amith over the past decade in over a dozen Nahuatl, Totonac, and Mixtec communities. In contrast to the more than 40 Symbiota-based portals based at Arizona State University, however, DEMCA adds ethnobotanical information to the biological information that is the type of content managed by all other Symbiota-based portals.

DEMCA Symbiota open source software (Computer Program)
Title: DEMCA Symbiota open source software
Author: Benjamin Brandt and Jonathan D. Amith
Abstract: Symbiota software enhancements for the DEMCA portal at demca.mesolex.org
Year: 2020
Primary URL: : https://github.com/DEMCA-Ethnobiology/Symbiota/blob/master/collections/individual/index.php
Primary URL Description: GitHub depository
Access Model: Open source and open access
Programming Language/Platform: PHP, Java script
Source Available?: Yes

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