Ethnobiology Along the Borderlands of Mexico and the United States

Abstract

This special issue examines the ethnobiology of the borderlands between Mexico and the United States, a region where geopolitical boundaries intersect with deeply intertwined ecological, cultural, and historical processes. While borders are commonly framed as rigid state-imposed dispositifs that regulate mobility, identity, and territorial belonging, they simultaneously function as dynamic biocultural mosaics where ecological flows, traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), and long-standing human–environment relations persist across political divides. Despite extensive scholarship on migration, identity, and border politics, ethnobiological research has only recently begun to explore how borders shape ecological knowledge, resource management, and culturally grounded practices. Drawing on global comparative work and focusing on the U.S.–Mexico region–home to rich biodiversity, intense migration, and deep Indigenous presence–this issue highlights how political fragmentation generates divergent ethnobiological “relational scripts” within communities historically connected across the border. The contributions explore language revitalization and plant knowledge among the Tunica–Biloxi; the biocultural significance of agave in the Sonoran Desert; microbial heritage in fermented cactus beverages; the contested cultural landscapes of white sage within Kumeyaay territory; and the multifunctionality of community gardens in metropolitan Monterrey. Together, they demonstrate how plants, animals, microbes, and knowledge systems continue to circulate despite material and symbolic barriers, while also revealing the uneven impacts of border enforcement, conservation regimes, and geopolitical asymmetries. By reframing the U.S.–Mexico border as a socio–ecological seam rather than a line of separation, this issue inaugurates a research agenda that foregrounds the resilience, creativity, and vulnerability of biocultural relations in borderland environments.