Documenting Ethnobiology in Mexico and Central America (Gettysburg College)
Documenting Ethnobiology in Mexico and Central America (DEMCA) is a data portal in development for the presentation, exchange and discussion of traditional ecological knowledge, particularly the nomenclature, classification and symbolic and economic use of flora and fauna in Indigenous communities of this region. It will provide users registered as Project Managers or Community Liaisons with a mechanism to upload and share their own materials (textual, photographic, and audio) and to offer these materials for identification and commentary by the DEMCA community of users.
Registered users will be able to search or browse DEMCA's resources through linguistic means (e.g, Indigenous nomenclature, the semantics of plant and animal names), project or community filters, functional uses (e.g, fencing, ointments), collection data (e.g., altitude), and Western nomenclature (e.g, by binomial name, browsing by genus). Eventually users will be able to tag entries, create and store records in personalized databases, and download these sets of linked entries to their computer. Audio recordings of narratives and discussions in Indigenous languages on local flora and fauna will be accessible through continuous or line-by-line playback and the contents will be displayed in transcription and translation (Spanish) formats. Eventually video will be incorporated.