Papers by Iwa Kołodziejska
Journal of religion and health, Apr 9, 2024
The Chechen authorities' focus upon population health is enacted both through the principles of I... more The Chechen authorities' focus upon population health is enacted both through the principles of Islamic medicine and approved biomedical practices. Any healing practices beyond these domains are met with deep suspicion. Practitioners of unofficial complementary and alternative medicine healers may abruptly find themselves regarded as enemies of the state. In light of this precarious circumstance, it becomes pertinent to inquire: How do these healers employ their daily tactics to negotiate the intricate power dynamics between the formidable state apparatus and the established biomedical order? Drawing from our meticulous fieldwork conducted in the year 2021, we investigated the intricate tactics employed by unofficial healers in the Chechen medical landscape during COVID-19. Our research centred on discerning the nuanced tactics aimed at mitigating potential risks. We conclude that healers, having embodied tactics to creatively manoeuvre within the confines of the authoritarian state, perceived the challenges posed by COVID-19 as merely another, often inconsequential, obstacle in their enduring struggle.
Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine, 2015
Background Shiri is a small mountainous village in the Republic of Daghestan, in the North Caucas... more Background Shiri is a small mountainous village in the Republic of Daghestan, in the North Caucasus. Daghestan is Russia’s southernmost and most ethnically and linguistically diverse republic, a considerable part of which belongs to the Caucasus Biodiversity Hotspot. Various species of wild leafy vegetables are collected in Shiri and there are still many social and cultural practices connected with plant collection in the village. Yet due to migration processes, local knowledge about wild greens and their uses is being slowly forgotten or not passed on. The Shiri language is highly endangered and so are the local plant terminologies and classifications. The unstable political situation hinders local and international research, therefore we find it highly important to explore both what wild leafy vegetables are collected in this mountainous part of Daghestan and how the relation between plants and people is shaped in this linguistically and culturally diverse context. We answer the f...
Studia Socjologiczne
Is there a cause-and-effect relationship between the application of the personal protection equip... more Is there a cause-and-effect relationship between the application of the personal protection equipment and strong social ties? We look at face-masks wearing in Dagestan republic in southern Russia. The social context of Covid-19 in Russia has not been exhaustively analyzed yet and medical landscapes in the post-Soviet context differ significantly from the Western models. We believe that such artifacts as face-masks are good for tracing relations between people, the virus, and the state. Contrary to the research based on data from the United States and China, our research reveals that there is not necessarily a cause-and-effect relationship between mask wearing and strong social ties. Face masks in Dagestan never became embodied artifacts despite strong social ties in the republic. Cultural and political context needs to be considered when thinking about the relationship between the strength of social ties and application of PPE.
Background It is only recently that written sources of local knowledge on plants are not being ig... more Background It is only recently that written sources of local knowledge on plants are not being ignored by scholars as not belonging to “traditional” knowledge. Ethnobotanical texts, however, if they at all focus on knowledge from written sources, hardly ever pay any attention to the actual processes of interaction with written texts and illustrations. During our research, we examined people’s interactions with texts, illustrations and herbarium specimens of plants they collect or are familiar with. We focused on a small community of Shiri people in the mountainous village and in the lowland settlements in the Republic of Daghestan, Russia. In the paper we address the following questions: how do Shiri people interact with illustrations, written text, and herbaria specimens? How is this interaction influenced by the practice of plant collection? What are the methodological implications of the ways people interact with illustrations, texts, and herbaria specimens? Methods Our research ...
Trames. Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences, 2012
Since Local Environmental Knowledge (LEK) stems from numerous sources and is learned and transmit... more Since Local Environmental Knowledge (LEK) stems from numerous sources and is learned and transmitted variously, it is highly heterogeneous. One of the reasons for its heterogeneity is a fact that transmission routes and patterns depend mainly on different sources, such as personal experience, influence of others as well as books and media. The objective of this article is to show how useful the idea of mental herbal might be in deep, complex and contextualized description of heterogeneous structure of LEK on the example of Polish minority members in a village Pojana Miculi (Rom. Poiana Micului)-South Bukovina, Romania. The whole body of skills, practice and knowledge of plants held by a particular person is defined here as the mental herbal. Mental herbal approach implies focusing on the particular holders of LEK-their stories, perceptions, everyday practices, considering the environment, and the context, in which LEK functions.
Is there a cause-and-effect relationship between the application of the personal protection equip... more Is there a cause-and-effect relationship between the application of the personal protection equipment and strong social ties? We look at face-masks wearing in Dagestan republic in southern Russia. The social context of Covid-19 in Russia has not been exhaustively analyzed yet and medical landscapes in the post-Soviet context differ significantly from the Western models. We believe that such artifacts as face-masks are good for tracing relations between people, the virus, and the state. Contrary to the research based on data from the United States and China, our research reveals that there is not necessarily a cause-and-effect relationship between mask wearing and strong social ties. Face masks in Dagestan never became embodied artifacts despite strong social ties in the republic. Cultural and political context needs to be considered when thinking about the relationship between the strength of social ties and application of PPE.
Ethnologia Polona, 2020
This paper combines ethnographic and ethnobotanical fieldwork with the edibility approach (EA), c... more This paper combines ethnographic and ethnobotanical fieldwork with the edibility approach (EA), chemical ecology and Ingold's ontology of dwelling. The EA aims to "push harder onto and through the boundaries between edible plants and the human-animals that eat them to consider the outcomes produced as a result of these interacting materials" (Attala 2017, 130). This approach places ingestion in the light of multispecies entanglement. As proposed by Attala, this is still a philosophically "open" concept, of limited operational use in ethnographic (ethnobotanical) study. Our article argues for an expansion of the EA, based on this combined perspective and giving more attention to cross-species interactions placed in an environmental context. Our cases are about how people live with plants, exemplified by foraging practices of agriculturists in Ukraine, Daghestan and Argentina. The everyday social relations of our interlocutors are more-than-human interactions, and in these relations we pay a close attention to non-cultivated edible plants. We present two modes of writing ethnographies, in which we focus respectively on a single plant taxon or a group of plants, and where both people and plants are protagonists. We argue that incorporating the dwelling perspective and chemical ecology into the EA is one of the potentially fruitful approaches to the analysis of plant-people relations. The use of language and of the tools of ecology in an attempt to present different aspects of co-dwelling of people and plants, although it may seem anchored in Cartesian dualism, in fact allows for a deeper understanding of the relations among protagonists and their co-dwellers in the environment, and hence goes against dualisms. The relations and the ways through which organisms co-create their environment are the very essence of ecology. The close collaboration of anthropologists, ethnobotanists, ecologists and chemical ecologists is postulated in the article.
Background: It is only recently that written sources of local knowledge on plants are not being i... more Background: It is only recently that written sources of local knowledge on plants are not being ignored by scholars as not belonging to "traditional" knowledge. Ethnobotanical texts, however, if they at all focus on knowledge from written sources, hardly ever pay any attention to the actual processes of interaction with written texts and illustrations. During our research, we examined people's interactions with texts, illustrations, and herbarium specimens of plants they collect or are familiar with. We focused on a small community of Shiri people in the mountainous village and in the lowland settlements in the Republic of Daghestan, Russia. In the paper, we address the following questions: how do Shiri people interact with illustrations, written text, and herbaria specimens? How is this interaction influenced by the practice of plant collection? What are the methodological implications of the ways people interact with illustrations, texts, and herbaria specimens?
This paper is a review of local plants used in water infusions as aromatic and refreshing hot bev... more This paper is a review of local plants used in water infusions as aromatic and refreshing hot beverages (recreational tea) consumed in food-related settings in Europe, and not for specific medicinal purposes. The reviewed 29 areas are located across Europe, covering the post-Soviet countries, eastern and Mediterranean Europe. Altogether, 142 taxa belonging to 99 genera and 40 families were reported. The most important families for making herbal tea in all research areas were Lamiaceae and Asteraceae, while Rosaceae was popular only in eastern and central Europe. With regards to botanical genera, the dominant taxa included Mentha, Tilia, Thymus, Origanum, Rubus and Matricaria. The clear favorite was Origanum vulgare L., mentioned in 61% of the regions. Regionally, other important taxa included Rubus idaeus L. in eastern Europe, Chamaemelum nobile (L.) All. in southern Europe and Rosa canina L. in central Europe. Future research on the pharmacological, nutritional and chemical properties of the plants most frequently used in the tea-making process is essential to ensure their safety and appropriateness for daily consumption. Moreover, regional studies dedicated to the study of local plants used for making recreational tea are important to improve our understanding of their selection criteria, cultural importance and perceived properties in Europe and abroad.
Acta Societatis Botanicorum Poloniae, 2012
Acta Societatis Botanicorum Poloniae, 2012
Village dwellers in Central Ukraine have access to various types of
therapy that comprise diverse... more Village dwellers in Central Ukraine have access to various types of
therapy that comprise diverse medical landscapes. Patients’
movements within these landscapes are possible thanks to each
person’s web of relations. Medical landscapes are not fixed, but vary
and dynamically change for each person, depending on their fluid
and interchanging, hierarchical webs of mutual relations with other
people, personal bodies, institutions, discourses, political powers,
other non-human organisms, or objects such as medicines. This
paper was inspired by the medicoscape concept (H€orbst and Krause
2004) as well as Ingold’s idea of meshwork analyses of relations
between various actors: in this case, patients, healers, a weak state,
official healthcare providers, pharmacists and medicinal plants, in
the context of patients’ therapeutic choices. Self-medication based
on herbal remedies is a very important feature of people’s medical
landscapes in Central Ukraine and usually the first therapy choice
for most interlocutors. That is why this paper is focused on the
presentation of the means through which people acquire
knowledge about medicinal plants, and the ways they interact with
plants and plants interact with them. In this way, showing the
complexity of villagers’ webs of relations is possible. The analysis is
based on ethnographic research conducted between 2009 and
2013 in the Vinnytsia region (Central Ukraine).
Since Local Environmental Knowledge (LEK) stems from numerous sources and is learned and transmit... more Since Local Environmental Knowledge (LEK) stems from numerous sources and is learned and transmitted variously, it is highly heterogeneous. One of the reasons for its heterogeneity is a fact that transmission routes and patterns depend mainly on different sources, such as personal experience, influence of others as well as books and media. The objective of this article is to show how useful the idea of mental herbal might be in deep, complex and contextualized description of heterogeneous structure of LEK on the example of Polish minority members in a village Pojana Miculi (Rom. Poiana Micului) – South Bukovina, Romania. The whole body of skills, practice and knowledge of plants held by a particular person is defined here as the mental herbal. Mental herbal approach implies focusing on the particular holders of LEK – their stories, perceptions, everyday practices, considering the environment, and the context, in which LEK functions.
Background: Shiri is a small mountainous village in the Republic of Daghestan, in the North Cauca... more Background: Shiri is a small mountainous village in the Republic of Daghestan, in the North Caucasus. Daghestan is Russia's southernmost and most ethnically and linguistically diverse republic, a considerable part of which belongs to the Caucasus Biodiversity Hotspot. Various species of wild leafy vegetables are collected in Shiri and there are still many social and cultural practices connected with plant collection in the village. Yet due to migration processes, local knowledge about wild greens and their uses is being slowly forgotten or not passed on. The Shiri language is highly endangered and so are the local plant terminologies and classifications. The unstable political situation hinders local and international research, therefore we find it highly important to explore both what wild leafy vegetables are collected in this mountainous part of Daghestan and how the relation between plants and people is shaped in this linguistically and culturally diverse context. We answer the following questions: what wild leafy vegetables are collected in Shiri? Why are they important to the local people? What is the social aspect of wild leafy vegetable uses?
This paper is a review of local plants used in water infusions as aromatic and refreshing hot bev... more This paper is a review of local plants used in water infusions as aromatic and refreshing hot beverages (recreational tea) consumed in food-related settings in Europe, and not for specific medicinal purposes. The reviewed 29 areas are located across Europe, covering the post-Soviet countries, eastern and Mediterranean Europe. Altogether, 142 taxa belonging to 99 genera and 40 families were reported. The most important families for making herbal tea in all research areas were Lamiaceae and Asteraceae, while Rosaceae was popular only in eastern and central Europe. With regards to botanical genera, the dominant taxa included Mentha, Tilia, Thymus, Origanum, Rubus and Matricaria. The clear favorite was Origanum vulgare L., mentioned in 61% of the regions. Regionally, other important taxa included Rubus idaeus L. in eastern Europe, Chamaemelum nobile (L.) All. in southern Europe and Rosa canina L. in central Europe. Future research on the pharmacological, nutritional and chemical properties of the plants most frequently used in the tea-making process is essential to ensure their safety and appropriateness for daily consumption. Moreover, regional studies dedicated to the study of local plants used for making recreational tea are important to improve our understanding of their selection criteria, cultural importance and perceived properties in Europe and abroad.
Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine, 2013
This paper is a review of local plants used in water infusions as aromatic and refreshing hot bev... more This paper is a review of local plants used in water infusions as aromatic and refreshing hot beverages (recreational tea) consumed in food-related settings in Europe, and not for specific medicinal purposes. The reviewed 29 areas are located across Europe, covering the post-Soviet countries, eastern and Mediterranean Europe. Altogether, 142 taxa belonging to 99 genera and 40 families were reported. The most important families for making herbal tea in all research areas were Lamiaceae and Asteraceae, while Rosaceae was popular only in eastern and central Europe. With regards to botanical genera, the dominant taxa included Mentha, Tilia, Thymus, Origanum, Rubus and Matricaria. The clear favorite was Origanum vulgare L., mentioned in 61% of the regions. Regionally, other important taxa included Rubus idaeus L. in eastern Europe, Chamaemelum nobile (L.) All. in southern Europe and Rosa canina L. in central Europe. Future research on the pharmacological, nutritional and chemical properties of the plants most frequently used in the tea-making process is essential to ensure their safety and appropriateness for daily consumption. Moreover, regional studies dedicated to the study of local plants used for making recreational tea are important to improve our understanding of their selection criteria, cultural importance and perceived properties in Europe and abroad.
Acta Societatis Botanicorum Poloniae, 2006
Campsis radicans is an attractive climber with typical ornitogamous flowers, native to North Amer... more Campsis radicans is an attractive climber with typical ornitogamous flowers, native to North America. In natural conditions this out-crossed plant is pollinated mostly by hummingbirds. In Poland, where C. radicans is cultivated as ornamental, it rarely sets seeds. The questions addressed in the present study were: (1) What animals pollinate its flowers in Poland?, and What is the reason for infrequent fruit set? Field studies conducted in five localities in Poland showed that the principal pollinator is Apis mellifera, and the lack of seeds is usually caused by pollinator limitation or absence of genetically different pollen donor plants.
Acta Societatis Botanicorum Poloniae, Dec 31, 2012
In this article we review the use of tree saps in northern and eastern Europe. Published accounts... more In this article we review the use of tree saps in northern and eastern Europe. Published accounts by travellers, ethnologists and ethnobotanists were searched for historical and contemporary details. Field observations made by the authors have also been used. The presented data shows that the use of tree sap has occurred in most north and eastern European countries. It can be assumed that tree saps were most used where there were extensive stands of birch or maple trees, as these two genera generally produce the largest amount of sap. The taxa most commonly used have been Betula pendula, B. pubescens, and Acer platanoides, but scattered data on the use of several other taxa are presented.
Tree sap was used as a fresh drink, but also as an ingredient in food and beverages. It was also fermented to make light alcoholic products like ale and wine. Other folk uses of tree saps vary from supplementary nutrition in the form of sugar, minerals and vitamins, to cosmetic applications for skin and hair and folk medicinal use.
Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are the only countries where the gathering and use of sap (mainly birch sap) has remained an important activity until recently, due to the existence of large birch forests, low population density and the incorporation of sap into the former Soviet economic system.
It is evident that gathering sap from birch and other trees was more widespread in earlier times. There are records indicating extensive use of tree saps from Scandinavia, Poland, Slovakia and Romania, but it is primarily of a historical character. The extraction of tree sap in these countries is nowadays viewed as a curiosity carried out only by a few individuals. However, tree saps have been regaining popularity in urban settings through niche trading.
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Papers by Iwa Kołodziejska
therapy that comprise diverse medical landscapes. Patients’
movements within these landscapes are possible thanks to each
person’s web of relations. Medical landscapes are not fixed, but vary
and dynamically change for each person, depending on their fluid
and interchanging, hierarchical webs of mutual relations with other
people, personal bodies, institutions, discourses, political powers,
other non-human organisms, or objects such as medicines. This
paper was inspired by the medicoscape concept (H€orbst and Krause
2004) as well as Ingold’s idea of meshwork analyses of relations
between various actors: in this case, patients, healers, a weak state,
official healthcare providers, pharmacists and medicinal plants, in
the context of patients’ therapeutic choices. Self-medication based
on herbal remedies is a very important feature of people’s medical
landscapes in Central Ukraine and usually the first therapy choice
for most interlocutors. That is why this paper is focused on the
presentation of the means through which people acquire
knowledge about medicinal plants, and the ways they interact with
plants and plants interact with them. In this way, showing the
complexity of villagers’ webs of relations is possible. The analysis is
based on ethnographic research conducted between 2009 and
2013 in the Vinnytsia region (Central Ukraine).
Tree sap was used as a fresh drink, but also as an ingredient in food and beverages. It was also fermented to make light alcoholic products like ale and wine. Other folk uses of tree saps vary from supplementary nutrition in the form of sugar, minerals and vitamins, to cosmetic applications for skin and hair and folk medicinal use.
Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are the only countries where the gathering and use of sap (mainly birch sap) has remained an important activity until recently, due to the existence of large birch forests, low population density and the incorporation of sap into the former Soviet economic system.
It is evident that gathering sap from birch and other trees was more widespread in earlier times. There are records indicating extensive use of tree saps from Scandinavia, Poland, Slovakia and Romania, but it is primarily of a historical character. The extraction of tree sap in these countries is nowadays viewed as a curiosity carried out only by a few individuals. However, tree saps have been regaining popularity in urban settings through niche trading.
therapy that comprise diverse medical landscapes. Patients’
movements within these landscapes are possible thanks to each
person’s web of relations. Medical landscapes are not fixed, but vary
and dynamically change for each person, depending on their fluid
and interchanging, hierarchical webs of mutual relations with other
people, personal bodies, institutions, discourses, political powers,
other non-human organisms, or objects such as medicines. This
paper was inspired by the medicoscape concept (H€orbst and Krause
2004) as well as Ingold’s idea of meshwork analyses of relations
between various actors: in this case, patients, healers, a weak state,
official healthcare providers, pharmacists and medicinal plants, in
the context of patients’ therapeutic choices. Self-medication based
on herbal remedies is a very important feature of people’s medical
landscapes in Central Ukraine and usually the first therapy choice
for most interlocutors. That is why this paper is focused on the
presentation of the means through which people acquire
knowledge about medicinal plants, and the ways they interact with
plants and plants interact with them. In this way, showing the
complexity of villagers’ webs of relations is possible. The analysis is
based on ethnographic research conducted between 2009 and
2013 in the Vinnytsia region (Central Ukraine).
Tree sap was used as a fresh drink, but also as an ingredient in food and beverages. It was also fermented to make light alcoholic products like ale and wine. Other folk uses of tree saps vary from supplementary nutrition in the form of sugar, minerals and vitamins, to cosmetic applications for skin and hair and folk medicinal use.
Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are the only countries where the gathering and use of sap (mainly birch sap) has remained an important activity until recently, due to the existence of large birch forests, low population density and the incorporation of sap into the former Soviet economic system.
It is evident that gathering sap from birch and other trees was more widespread in earlier times. There are records indicating extensive use of tree saps from Scandinavia, Poland, Slovakia and Romania, but it is primarily of a historical character. The extraction of tree sap in these countries is nowadays viewed as a curiosity carried out only by a few individuals. However, tree saps have been regaining popularity in urban settings through niche trading.