Achievement

Simone Whitecloud, IGERT trainee in Ecology and Lenore Grenoble, IGERT faculty (Univ. of Chicago, linguistics), conducted an in-depth survey of local knowledge and use of plants in communities in south Greenland during Summer 2011. Results were presented at the 35th Annual Society of Ethnobiology Conference documenting 171 uses of plants falling into 7 major categories: beverage, craft, food, medicine, fuel, spice or condiments, and ritual. Recording of uses and names of plants in Greenlandic allows a circumpolar analysis of linguistic patterns in designators of use, plant naming and native taxonomies. A few Greenlanders have acquired knowledge of plants from older generations, but there is currently a revival and regeneration of plant uses in Greenland, drawing not only on traditional knowledge but also from outside sources (including other Inuit communities and European sources). This study is significant from the interdisciplinary paring of a plant ecologist and linguist.