
Neal KelsoNew York Botanical Garden
Neal Kelso
Bachelor of Arts
About
10
Publications
853
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Introduction
I'm an environmental anthropologist with a focus on ethnobiology in Vanuatu. My recent research includes work on ecological time-reckoning systems and magic-as-science, conducted during linguistic and biocultural conservation/revitalization projects. I’m also interested in folk taxonomy, entomophagy, and general naturalist topics such as lichenology and entomology.
Additional affiliations
July 2018 - January 2023
Position
- Research Assistant
Description
- Development of Talking Dictionaries for endangered languages across the world, with a focus on environmental knowledge. Research and writing on "Daylight Studies" in Vanuatu. Audio & video editing, ethnobiology for digital lexica & field elicitation, literature reviews.
Education
August 2016 - June 2020
Publications
Publications (10)
Indigenous knowledge systems that uniquely encode environmental knowledge are vanishing globally in tandem with environmental changes and globalization. In this paper we explore knowledge and uses of the palolo polychaete worms (Palola spp.) in time-reckoning, as documented in the anthropological literature on Polynesia and Melanesia. We then intro...
This paper presents weather magic practices from the islands of Tanna and Aneityum, in southern Vanuatu, and highlights how this phenomenon is a critical domain of Indigenous environmental knowledge, particularly knowledge involving plants. Recent literature suggests that diverse cultural systems, such as music, can be viewed as domains of environm...
Pacific peoples maintain strong traditional ties to their local environments. One noteworthy example of these is the use of “ecological calendars,” in which natural cycles are observed as guides in time-reckoning. In southern Vanuatu, what we here call “calendar plants” represent the majority of signals used in these systems. We recorded 111 distin...
One year after two individuals of the rare lichen Phaeophyscia leana were reported from north Alabama, a significant subpopulation of more than 500 individual thalli was discovered nearby in the Goldsmith-Schiffman Wildlife Sanctuary, Owens Cross Roads, Alabama. The site is located in a young forest surrounding an 80-year-old pond on protected prop...
People in the southern Vanuatu islands of Aneityum and Tanna use plants as communication devices, a function which we call ‘message plants’. Certain species of plants are held, worn, or placed in specific locations with the intention of delivering messages with varied semantic content. In the cultural context of southern Vanuatu, message plants ser...
Based on original ethnographic and ethnobotanical research, we share how in the cosmology of Tanna, an island in Vanuatu’s southernmost province of Tafea, the Sun is viewed as a living, interactive being. Our initial interviews explored knowledge and beliefs concerning individual plant species, then subsequent follow-up interviews further explored...
Wind lore constitutes an important domain of environmental knowledge in eight cultures of southern Vanuatu (Aneityum, Futuna, Aniwa, Nafe, Naka, Netwar, Nanu, and Nahual). Our study reviews previous studies in Oceania which document wind systems as used primarily for long-distance navigation. The named winds of southern Vanuatu are not merely abstr...
This paper provides preliminary evidence that in San Lucas Quiaviní Zapotec (SLQZ), an Otomanguean language of Oaxaca, Mexico, plant taxonomy exhibits a unique system wherein life-form classes overlap significantly. Though similar findings have been recorded in other varieties of Zapotec, no comparable ethnobiological investigation in any Tlacolula...