@article{07676ca2bb25499faff8a77d561287d1,
title = "Interpreting the Indigenous and Imported Heritage of Medicinal and Culinary Plant Use in St. Vincent through the Gardens of John Nero and Alexander Anderson",
abstract = "This paper explores how two very different “heritage” gardens on the Caribbean island of St. Vincent hold a mirror to the rich and complex socio-cultural and botanical history of the wider Caribbean region, reflecting the different approaches to the historic cultivation and exploitation of indigenous and imported plant resources for culinary and medicinal ends. We start with a consideration of a small-scale gardening project in the village of Greiggs undertaken by John Nero, a Garifuna (“Black Carib”). This venture acts as a focus of a local community heritage and educational initiative, and attempts to reflect an emic view on the authenticity of Garifuna culinary and medicinal plant use. The second case, the botanical garden in Kingstown (one of the oldest botanical gardens in the New World and associated with the Scottish botanist Dr. Alexander Anderson d.1811) offers a distinct contrast, and is considered as a modernist, colonialist, and etic project, reflecting the botanical heritage of the Caribbean in the context of a global imperialist crossroads, and as a tool for a formalized scientific research. The two gardens differ in terms of scale, history, and cultural background but both are intimately connected to the themes of migration, colonization, resistance, and post-colonial socio-economic development seen through an ethnobotanical lens on this small and under-researched Caribbean island.",
keywords = "Culinary, Heritage, Medicinal, Plant use, St. Vincent, Plant Science, Horticulture",
author = "Christina Welch and Niall Finneran",
note = "Funding Information: There are no competing interests. The research trips to St. Vincent and to the London archives were funded by the University of Winchester, UK. The Anderson section research and transcription of Anderson manuscripts – Dr. Welch; the John Nero section research and transcription of Garifuna exhibition – Professor Finneran. This paper was co-written and co-edited by Welch and Finneran, and research in St. Vincent conducted together. Data sets have not been deposited in public repositories. All ethics approved by the Ethics Committee at the University of Winchester, UK. Consent to publish transcriptions of archival material was given by Kew Botanical Garden, the Linnaean Society, and the Natural History Museum. Consent to replicate the Garifuna Plant Use exhibition boards given by the Garifuna Heritage Foundation. Funding Information: There are no competing interests. The research trips to St. Vincent and to the London archives were funded by the University of Winchester, UK. The Anderson section research and transcription of Anderson manuscripts – Dr. Welch; the John Nero section research and transcription of Garifuna exhibition – Professor Finneran. This paper was co-written and co-edited by Welch and Finneran, and research in St. Vincent conducted together. Data sets have not been deposited in public repositories. All ethics approved by the Ethics Committee at the University of Winchester, UK. Consent to publish transcriptions of archival material was given by Kew Botanical Garden, the Linnaean Society, and the Natural History Museum. Consent to replicate the Garifuna Plant Use exhibition boards given by the Garifuna Heritage Foundation. The authors would like to thank the Garifuna Heritage Foundation in St. Vincent and Mr. John Nero of Greiggs village, St. Vincent. They extend a special thanks to Dr. Bob Allkin from Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew for his invaluable assistance with the scientific plant naming, and the editors for their patience. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2022, The New York Botanical Garden.",
year = "2022",
month = feb,
day = "7",
doi = "10.1007/s12231-021-09533-4",
language = "English",
volume = "76",
pages = "189--204",
journal = "Economic Botany",
issn = "0013-0001",
publisher = "Springer New York",
number = "2",
}