Felice S. Wyndham

Assistant Professor
(604) 822-2548 (AnSo 2222)
felice.wyndham(at)ubc.ca
Ph.D. University of Georgia, 2004

Research Interests

I am an ecological anthropologist and have focused my research on ethnobotany, sociocultural change in human ecosystems, and biocultural conservation. My research experience is primarily in Latin America. I have a long-term commitment to working with Raramuri (Tarahumara) and Mestizo communities in the Sierra Tarahumara, Chihuahua, Mexico. As an ecological anthropologist, I am interested in articulating the informational relations between ecological structures and processes in human societies, specifically focusing on the role of childhood patterns of knowledge acquisition as a locus of system renewal. As an environmental anthropologist, I work to understand how humans affect and are affected by an interacting network of cultural, social, biological and physical environments.

Areas of specialty: Human ecology, ecological and environmental anthropology, historical ecology and landscape transformations, human ecosystem theory, ethnoecology and ethnobiology, sociocultural and ecological change, ethnographic methods, anthropology of children, Northern Mexico, Latin American anthropology, community-based learning, critical theories of environment.

Research Projects

Landscapes, food-webs and ecological histories
A multi-year project on oral histories, historical ecology and ethnoecological landscapes in northern Mexico entitled Narrating Ecological Histories: Women, Children and Changing Landscapes of the Sierra Tarahumara, Mexico

Learning ecology: ethnobotany in the Sierra Tarahumara, Mexico.
My dissertation research (2000-2002) investigated intracultural variation of plant knowledge and social networks in Raramuri communities in different social and educational environments, using quantitative and qualitative methods. I identified patterns in children's knowledge acquisition that are linked to the social transformations their communities are experiencing, for example, rapidly increasing contact with non-Raramuri education systems and subsistence modes. Contrary to expectations, children attending boarding schools were not any less likely to have mastered a complete ethnobotanical repertoire, as long as their families were still knowledgeable.

In 2008 the students of my ethnobotany class and I (with the help of our wonderful TA Molly Malone, and designer/programmer/anthropologist Dylan Gordon) created and edited a wiki to explore ethnobotanical relationships. Visit it at Narrating Landscapes: an ethnobotanical relationships database. Also see the collective write-up that students published about their experiences visiting UBC Farm.

Select Publications

BOOKS

2002   Stepp, J.R., Felice S. Wyndham and Rebecca K. Zarger, eds.  Ethnobiology and Biocultural Diversity. Athens, GA. (USA): University of Georgia Press. 720 pages.

BOOK CHAPTERS

2002   The Transmission of Traditional Plant Knowledge in Community Contexts: the Role of Information, Consensus, Systems and Networks. In, Ethnobiology and Biocultural Diversity. Eds. J. R. Stepp, F. S. Wyndham and R. K. Zarger. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press. Pages 549 - 557.

ARTICLES

2010    Environments of Learning: Rarámuri Children’s Plant Knowledge and Experience of Schooling, Family, and Landscapes in the Sierra Tarahumara, Mexico. Human Ecology 38(1):87-99. (Published online in 2009 DOI: 10.1007/s10745-009-9287-5). PDF

2009   Spheres of Relations, Lines of Interaction: Subtle Ecologies of the Rarámuri Landscape in Northern Mexico. Journal of Ethnobiology 29(2):271-295. Special Issue: Traditional Resource and Environmental Management: Past, Present, and Future; Dana S. Lepofsky, ed. PDF

2009    Society for Humanistic Anthropology Contest Winners: In the Chaco. Anthropology and Humanism 34(2):254-255. PDF

2009    Wyndham, Felice and Sara Tiffany. ‘Whither the International Society of Ethnobiology? Some Results from our 2008 Survey of Members’ International Society of Ethnobiology News. 1.1 (January): 18-20.

2007    Review of: Haenn, N. and R. Wilk. The Environment in Anthropology: A Reader in Ecology, Culture, and Sustainable Living. American Anthropologist 109(4):767-768.

2004    Tarahumara. Encyclopedia of sex and gender in the world's cultures. Vol. 2 of 2. Ed. Carol R. Ember and Melvin Ember. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers. Pages 877 - 884.

2003    Review of: Yetman, D. and T.R. Van Devender. Mayo Ethnobotany: Land, History, Traditional Knowledge in Northwest Mexico. Journal of Ethnobiology 23(1):159-161.

2002    "Creative Collaboration: a Partial Primer for the Social Intellect." Journal of Ecological Anthropology. 6.1: 82 - 86.

2002    Kuchka, H.E. (Felice Wyndham et al.). "Method for Theory: A Prelude to Human Ecosystems." Special Issue, Journal of Ecological Anthropology. 5: 1 - 78.

2000    "The Sphere of the Mind: Reviving the Noösphere Concept for Ecological Anthropology." Journal of Ecological Anthropology. 4: 87 - 91.

1993    Adler, L. S., K. Wikler, F.S. Wyndham, C. R. Linder and J. Schmitt. "Potential for Persistence of Genes Escaped from Canola: Germination Cues in Crop, Wild, and Crop-Wild Hybrid Brassica rapa". Functional Ecology 7: 736 - 745.

DISSERTATION

Wyndham, Felice S. 2004. Doctoral Dissertation: Learning Ecology: Ethnobotany in the Sierra Tarahumara, Mexico. University of Georgia Department of Anthropology. PDF

PRESENTATIONS

  • 2009    Ethnobiology at the Crossroads: Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?; Society of Ethnobiology 32nd Annual Conference; New Orleans, La., USA. With Dana Lepofsky.
  • 2009    Children Learning the Plant World: Landscape, Ontogeny and Eco-Cultural Salience; Society of Ethnobiology 32nd Annual Conference; New Orleans, La., USA.
  • 2008    The In-Between: People, Plants and Landscape; American Anthropological Association 107th Annual meeting; San Francisco, Ca., USA.
  • Nov, 2006 Envisioning and Implementing the Next Decade of International Society of Ethnobiology; International Society of Ethnobiology; 10th International Congress of Ethnobiology; Chiang Rai, Thailand.
  • May, 2006 Plant Knowledge Networks in the Sierra Tarahumara and Beyond; Presented to: Las Vías del Noroeste; Noroeste-Southwest: Raíces Comunes/ Common Roots; Northern Arizona University, Arizona, United States
  • Apr, 2006 Dynamic Cultural Landscapes in the Sierra Tarahumara: What we Learn from Self-Critiquing Ecosystems; Presented to: Society for Applied Anthropology; World on the Edge; Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
  • Dec, 2005 Children’s ecologies, change and continuity in Sierra Tarahumara landscapes; Presented to: American Anthropological Association; Bringing the Past into the Present, 104th Annual Meeting of the AAA; Washington, D.C., United States
  • Nov, 2004 Seeing System; Presented to: Gregory Bateson Centennial Sessions (originally invited as a Presidential Session for the American Anthropological Association 103rd Annual Meeting that was cancelled). We convened as a day-long session in Berkeley, California, United States.
  • Aug, 2004 Steps to understanding belief systems in human ecology; Presented to: The Ecological Society of America; Ecological Exploration of Inhabited Landscapes, 89th Annual Meeting; Portland, Oregon, United States
  • Jun, 2004 Emergent knowledge structures: using social network studies to understand pattern and process in ethnobotany; Presented to: International Society of Ethnobiology; 9th International Congress of Ethnobiology; Canterbury, United Kingdom
  • Apr, 2003 Rock Art of the Sierra Tarahumara: Rarámuri, Mestizo and Apache Landscapes; 68th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology; Milwaukee, WI, United States.
  • 2002 Rarámuri Plant Information Ecologies; 101st Annual Meeting, American Anthropological Association; New Orleans, Louisiana, United States
  • 2000 Culture and process in ethnobotany: transmission and acquisition from a human ecosystems perspective; 99th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association; San Francisco, California, United States
  • 2000 The Transmission of Traditional Plant Knowledge in Community Contexts: The role of information, consensus, systems and networks; 7th International Congress of Ethnobiology; Athens, Georgia, United States
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