Estamos capturando de forma adequada o conhecimento local sobre plantas medicinais?: uma avaliação dos métodos de coleta de dados na pesquisa etnobotânica

Abstract

This current paper aims at investigating the influencing factors on capturing knowledge about medicinal plants in free lists, applied in given moments, and the additive effect that that checklist interview causes in this technique. In this context, the following hypothesis were approached: H1: the higher the age, the less similarity among the free lists of the mentioned plants in different moments; H2: external stimuli, such as the location of the interview, presence and interference of third parties, and the presence of factors that may influence the interviews and in the content of the free lists; H3: Most mentioned plants remain the same in different moments of the interview; H4: The free lists capture only a representative portion of individual knowledge on medicinal plants which is enhanced by the application of the checklist interview; H5: Knowledge heterogeneity on medicinal plants is shown to be larger on the gathered data after the checklist interview. Data were gathered in Altos dos Canutos community, located in the rural area of Picos, in the state Piauí, Brazil and further analyzed statistically through Jaccard’s similarity index, Generalized Linear Model (GLM) with binomial errors and stepwise approach, Spearman correlation test, t test and Wilcoxon test. It was noticed that the studied variables age and third-party presence could influence the capture of knowledge, indicating that the higher the participant age, less similarities were in the applied free lists, which means that older people may not remember well all plants they know, lowering the double presence of specimens among the lists. The existence of a third person during the interview rose the double presence of medicinal plants, making them remember the same plants and that free lists had the same species mentioned as the main ones. It was also identified that checklist interview offers an additive effect on free lists. This indicated that there were a higher number of medicinal plants mentioned in the checklist interview when applied after the free lists’ implementation, since this technique favors participants’ remembrance, thus achieving a higher number of medicinal plants mentions. Finally, it was noticed that free lists achieve a higher knowledge heterogeneity on the gathered knowledge and that the use of a more direct technique such as checklist interview, that stimulates the participant’ memory, lessened this heterogeneity. These discoveries led us to better understand the free lists and checklist interview techniques to provide a reflection to us, as researchers, aiming to identify when they must be used to achieve a more effective utilization.