HEALING PRACTICES: INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE IN THE AMAZON
When:
—
Venue:
Birkbeck 43 Gordon Square
HEALING PRACTICES: INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE IN THE AMAZON
10 December 2024, 14.00-17.30
Keynes Library, Birkbeck, University of London, 43 Gordon Square, WC1H 0PD
Funded by the Wellcome Trust, this roundtable is the first regionally focussed event on Indigenous Knowledge Producers organised by Prof Karen Wells, Director of the Birkbeck Institute of Social Research (BISR) and Prof Luciana Martins (Creative Arts, Culture and Communication, Birkbeck), to develop a network of multidisciplinary researchers to investigate the possibilities of decolonising research in life, health and wellbeing.
Programme
14.00-14.10 Welcome, Karen Wells (Birkbeck) and Luciana Martins (Birkbeck)
14.10-14.50 Gina Frausin, Independent Researcher
Plants and cultural resistance in the Amazon forest
14.50-15.30 William Milliken, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Promoting Indigenous researchers in documenting threatened traditional medicinal knowledge, for the health and wellbeing of future generations
15.30-15.50 Tea break
15.50-16.30 Alejandro Reig, Oxford University
Yanomami wellbeing in tune with the forest and the outside world: an improbable bet for a dialogical Indigenous healthcare system
16.30-5.30 Open discussion
Speakers:
Gina Frausin (Independent Researcher) is a botanist with Indigenous heritage, born and raised in the Colombian Amazon, with over 20 years of experience studying the knowledge of local communities, including Indigenous groups displaced by violence. She has also conducted research in Brazil about the relationship between local and scientific knowledge of medicinal plants. She is interested in agrobiodiversity and food security, understanding the importance of support by grassroots organizations. Recently, Gina has been involved with local initiatives in Lancaster-UK, with a strong community base, focusing on social-environmental challenges, including food security, biodiversity conservation and sustainability.
William Milliken (Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew) has over 30 years of experience in multi-disciplinary research and scientific leadership. His research has focused primarily on the interface between biodiversity, livelihoods, and ecosystem services, especially in the Brazilian Amazon. He has worked with several Indigenous communities, engaging local Indigenous researchers in recording threatened traditional knowledge. He has also conducted ethnobotany research, biodiversity assessment and training in Mozambique, Bolivia, Peru, Venezuela, Indonesia, New Guinea, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, and the UK.
Alejandro Reig (Oxford University) is an anthropologist who specializes in socio-environmental issues in the Amazon and lowland South America, with a focus on engaged work with the Yanomami people. Since the early 1990s, he has conducted research and applied research in the Venezuelan Amazon. He has participated in and advised on healthcare programs for the Yanomami in Venezuela, examining the connections between wellbeing, healthcare, and mobility.
Contact name:
Matthew Barrington