Browsing by Author "Sartori, Matteo"

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    La evolución del paisaje herbolario. Circulación biogeográfica de los conocimientos etnomedicinales de las plantas nativas de Chile (siglos XVI-XX).
    (Universidad de Concepción., 2023) Sartori, Matteo; Oviedo Silva, David
    Nowadays, plants represent a fundamental part of the natural human relationship. Specif-ically, there is a growing interest in the ethnomedicinal uses of plants as a part of the knowledge that different communities have developed in relation to their environment. The whole of ethnomedicinal uses can be considered as herbal landscape, the set of eth-nomedicinal information relating to a specific territory and its environment. Nevertheless, the importance of herbal knowledge is growing, as well as the risk of its weakening. The causes that could lead to a definitive and irreversible loss of ethnomedic-inal knowledge can be traced back to numerous contemporary factors inherited from a much longer historical period. Since all knowledge circulates and changes in time and space, it seems crucial to examine the biogeographical dimension, the territorial distribution and temporal dynamics that af-fect and influence the transformations of the herbal landscape over the past centuries. Based on some reflections on the specific context of Chile, where a general confusion and invisibilisation of knowledge about Chilean plant species emerged, the thesis explores the evolution of the herbal landscape in relation to Chilean native flora. Particularly, the dis-sertation examines the biogeographical circulation of ethnomedicinal knowledge of native plants from the sixteenth century to the first decades of the twentieth century, occurring in the Atlantic and global context, specifically in Chile and Europe. The methodology adopted is an interdisciplinary approach between environmental his-tory, biogeography, history of knowledge and ignorance, and historical ethnobotany, in a decolonial perspective. The main sources are the fourteen texts published between 1646 and 1918, in which the authors present in an organised and methodical way the ethnome-dicinal knowledge with a specific interest in the native flora of Chile. Moreover, I have considered all other relevant citations as well as the lack of mentions or the fragmented knowledge of ethnomedicinal uses of Chilean plants in the written historical sources col-lected during the study period. The results indicate that four processes marked the circulation of ethnomedicinal knowledge on Chilean native species in written sources: the fragmentation of knowledge, the theorisation of practice, the exclusion of non-scientific knowledge and the displace-ment of indigenous and local ethnomedicinal knowledge. All these processes constitute a particular form of coloniality of knowledge, a continued and illogical exclusion and invis-ibilisation of indigenous and local communities. The coloniality of Chilean herbal knowledge represents a form of epistemic oppression. Furthermore, the oppression of indigenous and local herbal knowledge led to environmental ignorance, the illogical inca-pacity to permanently dignify and value indigenous and local uses. The dissertation suggests, on the one hand, the importance of analysing ethnomedicinal knowledge from a historical, biogeographical, ethnobotanical, epistemic, and decolonial perspective. The result of the study shows that it is necessary to recognise which processes are correlated with the evolution of the herbal landscape. Hence, this recognition will be the premise for understanding what consequences knowledge may have on nowadays cir-culation of ethnomedicinal knowledge. On the other hand, to hinder the loss of herbal knowledge about Chile's native flora, it is necessary to precisely counteract those pro-cesses that contribute to coloniality of knowledge, interpreted as an epistemic oppression, and form the environmental ignorance.
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