Tsotsil Children’s Knowledge of Medicinal Plants: Experiential Narratives and Care in LOPI Ecologies

• In Event: Ways of organizing learning in everyday settings: LOPI in Indigenous practices, values, and community collaboration

Abstract

This poster presents research conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic (2020), a period in which Tsotsil children did not attend school and instead remained at home, participating intensively in family and community activities. Through a community-based project, children were first interviewed about their knowledge of medicinal plants. In a second phase, they collected plants themselves and subsequently produced written narratives describing their medicinal uses. The study shows that learning is situated within experiential participation ecologies, framed here as Learning by Observing and Pitching In (LOPI) (REFERENCES). Children’s experiential narratives reveal how medicinal plant knowledge is acquired through observation, inference, and hands-on participation in everyday practices of care. These findings highlight the central role of caregiving activities in the intergenerational transmission of ecological and medicinal knowledge in Tsotsil communities.

Author

• Lourdes de Leon, Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social