Ethnoecology of the interchange of wild and weedy plants and mushrooms in Phurépecha markets of Mexico: economic motives of biotic resources management

The form in which human societies interact with nature is influenced by complex systems of symbolic elements, customs, beliefs, and worldviews (the kosmos), traditional ecological knowledge (TEK, or corpus), and management practices and strategies (the praxis) [1‐3]. The worldview systems are constructed based on the form of how people perceive, interpret, and explain their surrounding social and natural contexts, which influence their social life and relation with their territories. These systems reflect the conceptions and representations of the space, time, the notion of belonging to a cultural group, strategies of social organization, rituals, forms of transmission of knowledge, and practices of production [4‐9]. TEK is represented by the body of experiences and conceptualizations resulting from the coexistence of a cultural group with nature; it conforms to the traditional cognitive system for recognizing, systematizing, classifying, and relating the elements of nature by that group [1, 5]. The management techniques conforming to the praxis include the diversity of strategies, planning, practices or forms of interaction for transforming, conserving, recovering, or adapting ecosystems to human views, needs, and purposes. Such practices are carried out with different levels of intensity according to the role both ecosystems and resources play in peoples’ life [10‐13].

TEK and management strategies and practices are intimately connected with the system of worldview [1, 5, 13]. The interpretations, representations, and forms of appropriation of nature at different spatial and temporal scales are therefore included in what is called by several authors the kosmos-corpus-praxis complex [3, 5, 14], in which interaction to local ecosystems and resources, determining particular life strategies and cultural identity [5, 9, 13, 15].

As part of life strategies, the traditional management strategies are based on the diversification of production by households, as well as on the interchange of products, all of which favors the diversified access to useful goods for complementing subsistence [16‐18]. The interchange can therefore be considered the node of a net of management actions, which may influence the type and intensity of management of natural resources and ecosystems according to values, cultural significance, and demand and scarcity of products in the interchange contexts [11, 12, 19, 20]. Through processes of interchange, products derived from management strategies by some people are available to other people, a feature characteristic of numerous cultural groups in Mesoamerica. Through interchange, social relations are constructed, and the products’ values result from their meaning, social function and importance in people’s life [12, 20, 21].

The traditional Mesoamerican markets still exist in some regions and form important part of the regional cultures and social relations of peoples of the area. Among others, these markets have the following features: (1) have pre-Columbian origin and maintain aspects of their physiognomy, (2) involve different forms of interchange, including barter, (3) are temporary, commonly weekly, (4) people of different ethnic groups have a setting of cultural interaction, (5) predominate the active role of women, and (6) coexist and interact with conventional modern markets [20, 22]. In traditional markets, it is common to find wild plants, animals, and mushrooms, as well as weedy plants products, which are obtained in homegardens, hunted or gathered in forests, and collected in ruderal and agricultural areas. These products still have high economic and cultural importance for subsistence of the rural households [18, 21, 22].

Our study analyses the processes of interchange of wild and weedy plants and mushrooms in the main traditional Phurépecha markets, in Michoacán, central Mexico. We particularly investigated the social, cultural, and economic relations associated with the interchanged products referred to, their relation to the traditional knowledge, their cultural values, and the social organization to obtain and interchange them. We particularly emphasized the relation of such context with practices of traditional management to ensure their availability to satisfy the needs of interchange. We previously have explored how management practices constitute responses to the need of ensuring availability of resources [11, 13, 20]. Such needs of availability may be influenced by their distribution and abundance and the magnitude of their importance in people’s life. These aspects determine balances between what is available and what is needed by a human group, involving ecological, cultural, and economic aspects. Interchange is an old strategy practiced by humans to attend the challenge of ensuring availability of some resources, but at the same time it establishes the need of making available for other people what some peoples have. And such situation may determine increase, in some contexts, and/or decrease, in others, of pressure on important resources [11, 13, 20]. We have hypothesized that those situations that increase pressure on valuable resources commonly influence management decisions, which may be more intense according to the magnitude of pressure and the risk associated to low availability of products and their high demand. Therefore, the interchange may be crucial for understanding the motivations of management of biotic resources. Our main premise of the current study is that markets are areas where the relations of the complex kosmos-corpus-praxis are expressed as part of the life strategies and the cultural identity of human groups. Therefore, we look into analyzing how interchange influences the need of management resources and ecosystems. We particularly explored the hypothesis that those resources with higher demand and interchange value in markets, but scarce in forests or other sources of resources provenance, enhance management practices. We conducted this study mainly from qualitative perspectives among the Phurépecha people of Michoacán, analyzing how such interchange relations in barter and trade in the main markets of the Phurépecha and how the intensity of these forms of interchange, in terms of supply and demand, influence management intensity.

The traditional markets studied significantly contribute to maintain biodiversity, human culture, and social relations in the Phurépecha region, expressing main cultural values, customs, and life strategies, in relation to knowledge and management of the interchanged resources [17, 18, 29‐35]. These markets represent the relation of humans with biodiversity through TEK and management practices [18, 36]. The space of interchange in the traditional markets studied is generated through social relations constructed based on products that are valued within the perspective of a culture of food, medicine, ceremonies, and forms of life that are part of the Phurépecha identity [22, 32], which enhance the diversified use of products through spaces of convergence of people from different communities [5, 19, 20, 22]. Women are the main connectors of the households’ world (what they produce, gather, process, and/or manufacture) with other households [20].

The form of offering products in traditional markets is similar to that described in pre-Columbian historical sources [37], which represents a cultural continuity [25, 38]. The possibility of interchanging a product is socially relevant, and it depends on the features of that product’s interchangeability within a cultural context. Things and products are classified and valued as a function of their meaning, values, communitarian regulations, and the practices of interchange themselves. Therefore, the interchange is a main source of referents for valuing products in a particular cultural context [5, 19, 32, 39, 40]. Interchange is a basic aspect of the subsistence strategy of households of the Pátzcuaro Lake region, which makes it possible to obtain products from different ecological regions [16, 19‐21].

Bartering is an ongoing form of Mesoamerican interchange. Through barter, horizontal social relations are established among people practicing it, and the notion of belonging to a cultural group is affirmed, when sharing products as a series of codes learned and shared characteristics of a human culture [32, 40]. In addition, the participants in bartering transactions identified themselves with things and products interchanged according to their use value, meaning, equivalence, prestige, need, and desire, which are all considerations based on a general worldview. The wild and weedy plants and mushrooms interchanged are mostly basic and complementary food for the regional people and considered of high economic and cultural importance. In the markets described, barter is maintained as a tradition and as part of a subsistence strategy for interchanging products in contexts in which money has still low importance. Barter is a node of a net of actions associated to management of natural resources for satisfying the subsistence needs of households that obtain products, constructing relations of reciprocity, solidarity, trusting, and equity [26].

The spaces of interchange are settings for developing a great variety of strategies of interchange that remain in the cultural memory. Persons participating in markets produce use values for other persons through a high variety of management strategies [39]. The wild and weedy resources interchanged in the region studied are mostly native species of plants and mushrooms that historically have high cultural value [20]. Gathering of these resources are carried out together with agricultural and forestry practices at household and regional levels (Fig. 4). Most wild and weedy species are available when availability of maize is low, when people is waiting for the products of the new harvest, and by that time, wild and weedy resources are particularly important for household subsistence. The markets therefore reflect the still cultural importance of gathering and extraction of wild and weedy products in people subsistence.

People practice management of wild and weedy plant resources, and this management is influenced by their role in subsistence, which in turn influence their exchange value. This value is therefore an important indicator of the motivation of people to gather and manage the resources interchanged, in order to increase their availability whenever it is necessary (Table 4).

The value of a product is not inherent to the product, but a property given to it by people. The use value make reference to the utilitarianism of a product for a specific cultural group while the interchange value is the capacity of a product for obtaining other products in a context of mercantile or not mercantile interchange [11, 22, 32, 39, 41, 42]. The wild and weedy resources interchanged in the markets studied are valued by the properties, qualities, and meanings assigned by the Phurépecha people [20, 26]. The value of a product is therefore the result of its position and meaning in a worldview (kosmos) of a human group, which involves a universe of incommensurable symbolic aspects. It is also related to the knowledge about properties and qualities (corpus), and the effort invested for making it available through practices (praxis) (Table 4).

Barter and trade represent different forms of interchange, which involve different forms of transactions and amounts of resources. Barter generally involves a higher diversity of products and species interchanged in small amounts, whereas trade may involve great amounts of products that are carried from the Phurépecha region to other areas. These transaction relations determine differential pressures on resources.

This study allows establishing some general relations between demand, perception of risk, and responses of management in relation to that risk. From markets, interviews and qualitative information about what people perceive provide valuable information in this respect. We identified groups of resources that are highly demanded in markets, that are actively interchanged throughout the year, and that receive management. We identified simple gathering, selective gathering, and gathering involving low or high amounts of time invested to obtain them, together with specific tools. Gathering is, therefore, not necessarily a simple action. Along with gathering, a higher complexity can be identified in tolerance or let standing of wild plants in anthropogenic areas, and such tolerance can be selective. Similarly, people promote or enhance plants, some of them selectively, and some others may be sowed and transplanted. All these practices represent a gradient of forms of interactions between people and plants, and some of them with mushrooms. These interactions and relations are similar to those documented by our research group in the Tehuacan Valley [11, 13, 20].

The Phurépecha markets are valuable settings of culture, social relations, and technology to manage both biotic resources and ecosystems. Important lessons for understanding factors motivating management can be found in these contexts, as well as in connection with the settings of the management of the territories of the communities participating in the net of interchange of the region. However, deeper information is still needed from people and communities where products destined to markets occur and are used, and management by people of those settings, the territories of the villages, is the topic of our ongoing studies.

The wild and weedy plants and mushrooms interchanged in the traditional markets of the Phurépecha region are key cultural species, immersed in the local cultural traditions of food, health, religious ceremonies, and rituals for daily life [43‐47], clearly representing aspects of the worldview, knowledge, and practices of the Phurépecha people. These aspects deserve an ethnoecological approach of the world around these resources and the relations of interchange involving them.

The traditional markets are part of a strategy of subsistence of Phurépecha people of the region, which conform an important setting of social relations, interchange of products, and cultural identity, and a crucial context for conserving the Phurépecha worldview, knowledge, and management practices [20, 25, 32]. The markets are therefore crucial expression of ethnoecological dimensions of the Phurépecha people.

Wild and weedy plants and mushrooms interchanged are important edible, medicinal, and ceremonial resources, mainly obtained through gathering from forests and weedy environments, but some of them, particularly edible and mainly medicinal plants, are managed through enhancing them in human-made environments. In general, the demand of products in markets enhances innovation and practices for ensuring or increasing their availability, particularly those that are naturally scarce. It was notorious that, with the exception of most, mushrooms and ritual plants have high demand and value in markets, but all wild resources for satisfying these needs are obtained through simple gathering.