Identifying Plants as a Process of Cultural Cognition: Comparing Knowledge Production and Communities of Practice in Modern Botanical Science and Nuaulu Ethnobotany.

This article compares plant identification practices between professional botanical taxonomists and the Nuaulu, a subsistence community in eastern Indonesia, highlighting how socio-cultural contexts and purposes shape differing approaches. It distinguishes identification—the cognitive and practical process of recognizing a plant specimen—from classification and naming, emphasizing that identification can occur without naming or classification. Scientific taxonomy relies on standardized, often fragmentary specimens, written descriptions, and hierarchical classification systems governed by codes such as the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature, whereas the Nuaulu identify whole living plants multisensorially, using flexible, orally transmitted knowledge without fixed reference types or written records. The paper discusses challenges in translating between these knowledge systems, noting that both scientific and folk identifications involve uncertainty, revision, and social negotiation, and argues for a pluralistic understanding of identification processes that moves beyond essentialist assumptions and simplistic equivalences between scientific and ethnobotanical categories.