Dissertation Improvement: Ethnobotanical Knowledge and Communication Networks: An Interactionist Approach to Understanding Indigenous Education in the Sierra Tarahumara, Mexico

这一研究项目将由佐治亚大学人类学博士生进行，有助于了解在正式和非正式社会背景下获取和转移知识的一些过程。植物知识的多样性和一致性被认为与通信网络结构和群落相互作用模式的变化有关。定性和定量技术被用来检验这些假说，并记录在墨西哥奇瓦瓦的几个Raramuri(Tarahumara)群落中民族植物学知识的变异和变化。该项目从三个方面确定了导致儿童和成人植物学专长不同的环境因素：1)家庭之间的社会相互作用模式；2)儿童的直接环境相互作用，包括生物物理和社会文化相互作用；3)儿童的个人特征和社会角色。这些成果将有助于发展土著教育的互动主义模式，并有助于理解个人学习和社区变革进程之间的关系。它还将有助于正在进行的拉拉穆里生物文化保护工作和设计有效的环境教育项目。

This research project, to be conducted by a doctoral student in Anthropology at the University of Georgia, contributes to an understanding of some of the processes of knowledge acquisition and transfer in formal and informal social contexts. Plant knowledge diversity and consensus are hypothesized to be correlated with variation in the structure of communication networks and community interaction patterns. Qualitative and quantitative techniques are used to test these hypotheses and document variation in ethnobotanical knowledge and change in several Raramuri (Tarahumara) communities in Chihuahua, Mexico. The project identifies environmental factors contributing to differential botanical expertise among children and adults at three levels of interaction: 1) the social interaction patterns between households; 2) a child's immediate environment interactions, both biophysical and sociocultural; and 3) a child's personal characteristics and social roles. Results will contribute to the development of an interactionist model of indigenous education, and to understanding the relationships between individual learning and community processes of change. It will also contribute to ongoing Raramuri biocultural conservation efforts and to the design of effective environmental education projects.