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by Vincent Battesti

 A century of “ethno-things”.
1921-2021 - From the “Revue de Botanique Appliquée” to the “Revue d’Ethnoécologie”.
call on Calenda: https://calenda.org/842716
The Revue d’ethnoécologie (Journal)

Un siècle d’« ethno-machins »
1921-2021 - De la « Revue de Botanique Appliquée » à la « Revue d’Ethnoécologie »

 Call for Papers:

On May 15th, 1921, Auguste Chevalier launched the 1st issue of the 1st volume of the Revue de botanique appliquée et d’agriculture coloniale. He concluded his statement To the reader with these lines:

“This journal seems to address a necessity: in the field of genetics and selection, colonial cultures, and even in botany applied to temperate cultures, there is no specialised journal in French literature. That is why we are looking to gather around the Revue de Botanique appliquée the scattered French workers who, with their work or explorations, are trying to bring out the scientific methods to use them on culture or the cultivation of useful plants.”

The RBA was published for 32 years, edited by Auguste Chevalier until 1953. Roland Portères took over the publication in 1954 under the name Journal d’agriculture tropicale et de botanique appliquée after the death of Chevalier. With this slightly modified name, the JATBA was published for 42 years until 2000 [1]. As a salute to this new century, we were able to carry on this initiative in 2012 by launching the current Revue d’ethnoécologie, which aims to follow the footsteps of this long scientific line in the international human sciences movement. More than editorial choices, the successive modifications of the title [2] reflect the shift in the research fields: economic botany, colonial agronomics, tropical agronomics, traditional agriculture, ethnobotany and ethnozoology, ethnobiology, ethnoecology. Here is a century of unique thinking, of renewed studies of the relationships with living systems which, from an editorial standpoint, was able to blossom within the Muséum national d’histoire naturelle.

We would like to give a proper salute to the RBA’s 100th birthday with a special issue to which we would like you to contribute.

The purpose is to comment and analyse the evolutions and transformations in the research fields that the RBA, the JATBA and the Revue d’ethnoécologie have reflected for a century: what happened with economic botany, traditional agriculture, ethnobotany, ethnobiology, ethnoecology? How did they evolve? Which schools? Are there differences from one nation to another, from one academy to the other? Do these words still have functions, topicality, meaning, programmes? Is there a transmission among generations, a re-appropriation of these fields (education, theses, professional practices from young researchers/university lecturer and researchers)? Which researches are currently being led and in which direction? Have the non-academic circles taken possession of these researches? How about local communities or the communities that are the subject of researches? What is the future of these intellectual areas?

The expected contributions can be brief; they may reflect your opinion, your history, your personal experience. They can take the form of an interview with a “great witness”. It could be biographical or personal evocations of past famous actors of ethnobiology (e.g. Jacques Barrau, Lucien Bernot, Ralph Bulmer, Hal Conklin, Claudine Friedberg, A.-G. Haudricourt, François Sigaut…). They can be based on bibliographical summaries. They do not have to be specific research results, but we rather expect it to result in to a set of contributions that will shape an overview of a century of study of the relationships between societies and their environment.

Maïs cultivé, dans les mains d’un agriculteur de l’oasis de Siwa, désert Libyque, Égypte, le 27 nov. 2013, Vincent Battesti
Cultivated corn, in the hands of a farmer in the oasis of Siwa, Libyan Desert, Egypt, Nov. 27, 2013, Vincent Battesti
© Vincent Battesti

 Submission guidelines
The texts can be written in French, English or Spanish.
We would like to receive proposals (title, abstract) by 15th June 2021 and the final texts by 30th September 2021.

Papers must be submitted to: ethnoecologie revues.org.

 Editors
Serge Bahuchet, directeur de la publication de la Revue d’Ethnoécologie, professeur, Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle,
 Françoise Aubaile (Attachée du Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle)
 Vincent Battesti (Chargé de recherche, CNRS)
 Rebecca Hardin (Associate Professor, University of Michigan)

[1All issues of both journals (RBA and JATBA) from 1921 to 2000 are available on-line: https://www.persee.fr/collection/jatba

[2See Hoare (2012 https://doi.org/10.4000/ethnoecolog...) for the evolution of RBA and successive titles.