Since fifteen years my research interests concern the folk knowledge systems related to plants, the environment, the management of health within domestic arenas, and the cuisines in the Mediterranean and Balkan regions and among migrants and diasporas.

In particular, the trajectories of my research group touch the following subject areas:

· Ethnobiology

Ethnobotany: Traditional Environmental Knowledge (TEK) on “wild” food and medicinal plants and mushrooms

Plant Food History: plants in folk cuisines; food-medicines; emergency foods

Medicinal Plants and Ethnomedicine: health-seeking strategies via folk phytotherapies

Ethnoveterinary: folk knowledge on plants used as fodder, for healing animals, and for improving the quality of dairy products

Ethnozoology: traditional uses of wild terrestrial animals for food and medicine

· Human Ecology

Cross-cultural comparative analysis of TEK among communities living within the same environmental spaces; diachronic TEK changes in response to environmental or socio-cultural dynamics

The communities we work with are:

Ø Albanians

Ø Ethnic minority groups, diasporas, and “cultural edges” in the Mediterranean and Balkan regions

Ø Migrant communities/”newcomers” in Western Europe

The outputs of these studies are intended to be relevant to:

§ Local Speciality Foods

§ Public Health (i.e. policies devoted to migrant groups)

§ Biodiversity Conservation (i.e. strategies focused on emic views about the nature)

§ Rural Development (i.e. eco-tourism and small-scale harvesting and trade of local food and medicinal plants)

§ CAM Development (i.e. new herbal products or nutraceuticals)

§ Cultural Heritage (i.e. eco-museums, ethnobotanical gardens)

Through these web pages we would like to build bridges to other initiatives and networks working on these issues.

Feedbacks are welcome!