IK Monitor Publications (9-2)

Indigenous Knowledge and Development Monitor, July 2001

Contents IK Monitor (9-2) | IKDM Homepage | Suggestions to: ikdm@nuffic.nl | © copyright Nuffic-CIRAN and contributors 2001.

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IMPORTANT NEW BOOKS

The appearance of important new publications is reported here, and the books are briefly described. We have requested review copies, which will be sent to experts for their opinions regarding the books' practical usefulness. The reviewers' comments will be published in a subsequent issue of the Indigenous Knowledge and Development Monitor.

Marina Martin, Evelyn Mathias, and Constance M. McCorkle (2000) Ethnoveterinary medicine: an annotated bibliography of community animal healthcare. London: ITDG Publishing, GBP28 including post and packing. Fax: +44-207-436 2013
E-mail: orders@itpubs.org.uk
The book is also available to order from bookshops and from web-based bookshops such as Amazon (http://www.amazon.com).

Livestock breeders and healers everywhere have traditional ways of classifying, diagnosing, preventing, and treating common animal diseases. Many of their 'ethnoveterinary' practices offer viable alternatives or complements to conventional, Western-style veterinary medicine - especially where the latter is unavailable, unaffordable, unreliable, or inappropriate. The highly interdisciplinary and international field of Ethnoveterinary Research & Development was introduced in a previous volume in IT's series on Indigenous Knowledge and Development (McCorkle et al. 1996). The present bibliography constitutes a follow-on volume, packed with annotations on 1,240 publications dealing with sociocultural, political-economic, and environmental as well as biomedical aspects of community animal healthcare. Entries span 118 countries of Europe, Africa, the Americas, Asia and the Pacific. Examples of ordinary people's knowledge, skills, beliefs, and both empirical and medico-religious practices are recorded for some 200 health problems in 25 livestock species kept by more than 160 named ethnic groups within these nations. The species discussed range all the way from 'exotics' like reindeer, camelid, elephant, and yak, through more familiar farm and pet animals, to micro-livestock like fish and bees. Reference is made to 765 plant species or genera, some 45 inorganic items or compounds, and innumerable foodstuffs and household items employed in treatments that run the gamut of the medicinal, surgical, physical/mechanical, and supernatural. Also noted are well over 100 types of local healthcare specialists. In addition, stockbreeders' many astute and often environmentally friendly health-related herding, housing, husbandry, and breeding practices are documented.

The volume focuses on 20th-century literature, with the bulk of publications dating from 1989 to 1999. It is designed to provide researchers, development professionals, and policymakers working in agriculture, education, national development and human medicine with contemporary information, ideas and approaches for the practical evaluation, application, and extension of community animal healthcare knowhow and resources to solving immediate development problems. Readers concerned about issues like toxic residues in livestock products, chemo-resistance from over-medication of animals, or the environmental impacts of stockbreeding will also find the book provocative. At a broader level, the bibliography suggests the many potential benefits to people everywhere of systematically studying and building upon sometimes ancient - and sometimes brand-new - local and indigenous knowledge.

Maffi, Luisa ed. (2001) On biocultural diversity: linking language, knowledge, and the environment. Smithsonian Institution Press. 544 pp. ISBN 1-56098-905-X. USD65.00 hardcover, ISBN 1-56098-930-0. USD34.95. Smithsonian Institution Press.
Tel: +1-800-7824612.

This book is based in part on the international working conference Endangered Languages, Endangered Knowledge, Endangered Environments held in Berkeley, California, in 1996. It brings together an interdisciplinary and multicultural group of researchers, practitioners, and activists to discuss common threats to the world's biological, cultural, and linguistic diversity. In addition to theory and case studies, book chapters deal with indigenous peoples' cultural, linguistic, and traditional resource rights and outline action needed to counter biocultural diversity loss. The final chapters suggest new directions for research, documentation, training, and action in order to conserve biocultural diversity.

For more information, see: http://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/Maffi-book.html