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In the upcoming BC Studies issue, Natasha Lyons looks at Ancient Pathways, Ancestral Knowledge, by Nancy J. Turner.
“Nancy Turner’s new work Ancient Pathways, Ancestral Knowledge is undoubtedly her magnum opus. It is a thing of great scope, beauty, eloquence, and cohesion. Yet perhaps its greatest attribute, like all of Turner’s work, is its undeniable utility. Upon receiving this wonderful resource I immediately and happily put it to use on a variety of the questions and projects I am working on.
The resource is a two-volume set which “investigates people-plant interrelationships in northwestern North America in an effort to better understand the pathways and processes by which ethnobotanical and ethnoecological knowledge systems of Indigenous peoples in this area have developed, accumulated, spread, and evolved over time” (v.1: 3). The volumes integrate Turner’s forty years of truly collaborative research with First Nations peoples throughout the Pacific Northwest using many strands of thought, including indigenous knowledge systems, oral history, ethnographic and historical documentation, linguistics, palaeoethnobotany, archaeology, ecology, and phytogeography.
While a work of such scope could seem like a mountain of detail for the reader to tackle, these volumes are nothing of the sort. Turner’s writing is accessible, animated, and at times poetic, and the structure of the sections, chapters, and volumes is approachable and intuitive. Nancy is a person who naturally and (seemingly!) effortlessly integrates different kinds of knowledge, and this is evident in her writing.”
Nancy Turner is Distinguished Professor and Hakai Professor in Ethnoecology in the School of Environmental Studies at the University of Victoria. She has studied Indigenous peoples’ knowledge of plants and environments in northwestern North America for over forty years.
In Ancient Pathways, Ancestral Knowledge, Turner integrates her research into a two-volume ethnobotanical tour-de-force. To learn more about this book, click here.
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