Our relations – Ethnobotany, People-Plants, Connection, Growing
ethnobotanical musings
Exploring our human-plant relations!
Welcome! A brief introduction!
I love plants and natural systems and learning to understand our role as sacred humans within these relations! If you do too I hope you find joy and connection, interest and nourishment in these pages!
This page focuses on Ethnobotany, People-Plants, Connection, Growing. Through my website I will share my love, appreciation and learning in relation to plants and those who live closely with plants. I share my gratitude for all our relations; humans, plants and other beings, such as animals, fungi and lichen we interact with.
As a European and westerner I understand that part of the work required is reconnection to natural systems and learning to walk in gratitude for all that our ancestors created, in particular our ancestors in the majority world who created the majority of the plants we rely on through the processes of domestication and cultivation.
I am interested in wild foods and foraging, growing food within bio-culturally embedded, regenerative food systems, growing herbs for food and medicine and learning from nature connected peoples and sharing with others.
A bit more about me!
My name is Charlie and I have always loved the outdoor world; being in nature and at one with the elements. In my 20s I studied Ethnobotany through an MSc focusing on wild foods, at the University of Kent in the Department of Anthropology and Conservation and Royal Botanic Gardens – Kew, followed by an urban ethnobotany study of migrant food systems in the post-industrial City of Bradford, West Yorkshire, UK. Ethnobotany is the lens I see the world through.
With an ongoing interest in ethnobotany I am acutely aware that the traditional, original and indigenous roots and people who created many of the systems we rely on are not properly acknowledged. Those of us who are not from first nations, original or aboriginal peoples or indigenous groups, are often disconnected from our ancestors and their traditional ways of living with earth and natural systems.
I offer gratitude to all our ancestors, for without them we would not be here. We have much learning and re-connecting to do especially in the West. My offerings are open to all. At present my focus here is sharing my learnings from my work in the UK supporting local communities to re-connect to the nature within and around them; to acknowledge and develop ourselves as humans as part of natural systems.
Hence, here I will be sharing what I have learnt through my many roles interacting with plants over the past 20 years, and will bring this ethnobotanical lens to sharing about foraging and forest gardening; food systems, food growing, food sovereignty, seed sovereignty and seed saving, forest schools and social and therapeutic horticulture, nature connection, and permaculture. You can see my permaculture designs through my permaculture portfolio blog www.backtobackpermaculture.com
I will share my ‘notes from the field’ on Ethnobotany, People-Plants, Connection, Growing – and will include recipes, remedies, fascinating facts and uses of plants, and all the ways in which we can develop stronger relationships with our plant relations.
My offerings
invite me to your space in person or online
Ethnobotany, People-Plants, Connection, Growing
- Coaching/Mentoring Completing the Social Permaculture Facilitator Training with Looby MacNamara in 2015-16 included Mentoring/Coaching training using a permaculture design approach. This builds on my years of teaching (ESOL) and outdoor training I have led, as well as therapeutic horticulture sessions. I can offer 1:1 sessions of coaching/mentoring for you in your nature-based self-actualisation or work. (This is a different approach to counselling and I am not a trained counsellor, whilst I have benefitted much from receiving different types of counselling and therapy).
- Research As an MSc and MPhil student I have undertaken ethnobotanical research on wild foods in Canterbury, Kent, UK, acculturation of traditional diets of migrant communities in Bradford, West Yorkshire, UK. I have also spent time in traditional communities in Chiapas and Oaxaca, Mexico. I speak fluent French and Spanish.
- Talks I have given talks on food systems, urban ethnobotany, wild foods, community gardens and social prescribing, and our intuitive relationships with plants. I have given tours of the Ethnobotanical gardens in Oaxaca in Spanish too.
- Garden design I am in the process of finalizing my permaculture diploma and will link to it here shortly.
- Community Engagement I was co-founder and community engagement coordinator at Horton Community Farm and have co-created numerous designs and facilitated many design processes, engaging our community.
- Food Systems design thinking I have lived in France and after spending time in Nicaragua with a women’s animal and seed loan scheme, studying wild foods and traditional food systems in the UK and Mexico I have spent a lot of time thinking about food systems. I have also been involved locally in setting up the community farm and thinking about how we design with, by and for community. I have been involved in promoting them local food in the UK through Grow Bradford.