Résumé
Ethnoecology seeks to understand the relationships between humans, landscapes, living beings, and even inanimate forms. More specifically, this discipline focuses on how space is experienced and inhabited by humans (representations, relational values), and how humans use, manage, and transform their natural resources (local knowledge, practices). To achieve this, it is necessary to develop methods that transcend boundaries between disciplines and actors, integrate sensitive approaches, while maintaining a solid biocultural knowledge of the actors involved (i.e. humans and plants). As ethnoecologists, we accept that “natures, cultures, subjects, and objects do not preexist their intertwined worldings”, and we advocate for forms of dialogue that encourage “thinking-with” and “between”, “becoming-with” and “making-with” the “ordinary beings-in encounter” (Haraway, 2016: 13, 45, 58). Becoming an ethnoecologist requires transcending in-group dynamics and calling upon undisciplined academics, grounded practitioners, artivists, and not forgetting the living beings and other landscape elements.To understand how biological and cultural diversities can be reconciled to preserve local and sustainable heritage, Sophie Caillon chooses to explore agrobiodiversity within the framework of her habilitation thesis, grounding her work in ethnoecology. Why do farmers seek to cultivate, diversify, and even domesticate new species and landscapes? She investigates cultivated plants that are maintained, created, and transformed by examining their local names and classifications, their uses, agricultural and culinary practices, and the values that motivate those who care for them, including the ways in which they are acquired and their genetic diversity. In summary, Sophie Caillon focuses on local knowledge. Collecting local knowledge requires listening to life stories of humans, but also of landscapes and their constitutive elements; the values of well-being have emerged from these interviews. Thus, research on agrobiodiversity or well-being shares the same theoretical framework based on an intertwined system of ethical and multidimensional values, particularly relational values that reveal the sensitive aspects of our relationships with others.