Elizabeth Anne Olson / Elizabeth Olson
Indigenous Knowledge and Development: Livelihoods, Health Experiences, and Medicinal Plant Knowledge in a Mexican Biosphere Reserve provides an ethnographic account of the Nahua, a group of indigenous people living in a protected area in west central Mexico. The study moves back and forth between the macro and micro to explore the relationships between three central axes—health, livelihood and cultural knowledge. This anthropological study presents analysis based on household level socioeconomic data and cultural knowledge measured through the use of both structured and semi-structured interviews. Themes that emerge tell the story of contemporary struggles related to governance, cultural heritage, indigenous identities, conservation, and community development. This research contributes to ethnographic knowledge about conservation and cultural heritage on protected areas in Mexico.
