General objectives

The project starts from the consideration of the profound impact that the Mediterranean cultures have had in the management of the natural environment. Relics of Traditional Knowledge (TK) that have survived nowadays in many rural areas of the area confirm the strong mutual influences between human cultures, plants, and traditional technologies and know how.

The aim of this research project is the recording of ethnographical field data in order to develop a model for the re-evaluation of tools and technologies related to traditional uses of wild and neglected cultivated plants for food, medicine, textiles, dying, handicrafts, and basketry, as well as to identify and evaluate the socio-economic and anthropological context in which these plants have been gathered and processed.

At the same time the project will disseminate the TK records in a permanent educational framework (booklets, a general Ethnographic Atlas of Useful Plants of the Mediterranean and a related video, on paper and CD) and, in a few case-studied areas, modern museology.

The Consortium will contribute to:

• point out a folkloric history of useful plants (food, medicine, textiles, dying, handicraft, basketry, and rituals) in Southern Europe, Northern Africa and the Near East;

• analyse the role of botanicals as ingredients and tools used in traditional cooking and healing practices, in producing textiles and basketry, and in dying habits in selected rural Mediterranean areas;

• disseminate and exchange this heritage through pre-existing ethnographical museums and newly conceived ethnobotanical collections.
 

Specific scientific and technological objectives

• Creating a knowledge data base of the vegetable materials which have been used in traditional habits in the Mediterranean with respect to the following areas: cuisine, human and veterinary medicines, technology and handicraft (including textiles and dying means)

• Developing a data base (also visual) of all tools, objects and technologies used in these practices

• Developing a data base (also visual) of all tools, objects and technologies used in these practices

• Analysing the socio-cultural relations and the context where this TK has been found (e.g., significance of gender, age, kinship, and ethnicity in TK and TK transmission related to plants, strategies for conservation and re-evaluation of bio-cultural heritage)

• Evaluating data gathered in the different selected areas by using modern statistical methods for ethnobiological analysis and comparing with other botanical, ethnobotanical and anthropological databanks

• Evaluating a few traditional neglected crops for their current agronomic feasibility (cultivation of these species in arid and semi-arid areas);

• Evaluating traditional technologies for their perspectives in terms of the small-scale eco-sustainable production of a few phytotherapeuticals

• Disseminating the TK recorded in booklets for local distribution (particularly among the populations studied) as well as in one general Ethnographic Atlas of Useful Plants of the Mediterranean

• Giving a contribution to modern ethnographical museology by developing special sections both in a couple of local Botanical gardens and Anthropological Museums (illustrating plants, folk tools and technologies related)