Ethnobiological Classification: Principles of Categorization of Plants and Animals in Traditional Societies

by Brent Berlin

A founder of and leading thinker in the field of modern ethnobiology looks at the widespread regularities in the classification and naming of plants and animals among peoples of traditional, nonliterate societies--regularities that persist across local environments, cultures, societies, and languages. Brent Berlin maintains that these patterns can best be explained by the similarity of human beings' largely unconscious appreciation of the natural affinities among groupings of plants and people recognize and name a grouping of organisms quite independently of its actual or potential usefulness or symbolic significance in human society. Berlin's claims challenge those anthropologists who see reality as a "set of culturally constructed, often unique and idiosyncratic images, little constrained by the parameters of an outside world." Part One of this wide-ranging work focuses primarily on the structure of ethnobiological classification inferred from an analysis of descriptions of individual systems. Part Two focuses on the underlying processes involved in the functioning and evolution of ethnobiological systems in general.

Originally published in 1992.

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Genres: Biology, Science, Nonfiction

364 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1992

Reviews

[Justin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is easily the most difficult book I have ever read, both because it deals exclusively in taxonomic nomenclature and because the the theory Berlin presents is a radical upheaval in the world of cultural anthropology and ethnobiology. How do human beings come to name, order, define and organize species of the natural world they live in? Intended for an audience of experts in the fields listed above, Berlin's work argues that there is a universal scheme shared by all human beings in the way we classify and organize our knowledge of the natural world. Furthermore, these classifications have a perceptual, cognitive basis rather than a functionalist one (i.e. culturally specific useful plants more likely to be known, named, utilized rather than colorful plants). Berlin presents volumes of scientifically valid evidence to support each claim he makes; his data are compiled from years of research with several different discrete cultural groups residing in neotropical rainforest areas.