What can a plant tell us about a landscape when we listen not only to botanical science, but also to the people who have cultivated, transformed and understood it for generations? One of LRG’s 2026 Research Fund projects is developing a new approach to documenting the relationships between plants, material culture, Indigenous knowledge and territory.
Plants, People, Territory: Documenting Indigenous Wisdom of Landscape in Colombian Biomes is led by María Susana Mena-Deferme (Minche), Director of the Master’s in Materials Design and Innovation at the Creation Faculty, Universidad del Rosario, Colombia. The project is a pilot for the much larger Diccionario Material Colombiano, an ambitious research initiative that aims to document 414 plant species central to Colombian material culture across six biomes.
At its heart is a deceptively simple idea: documenting a plant independently of the people, practices, memories and territories connected with it can capture only part of its meaning.
Minche and her team are therefore developing and field-testing a methodology called Plant, Process, Memory. It brings together three forms of knowledge without asking one to validate or subordinate another: the botanical identity and ecology of a species; the technical processes through which it becomes a material; and the lived knowledge and collective memory of the people who work with it.
The pilot will take the team into two contrasting Colombian landscapes: the Koreguaje territory of Milán, Caquetá, in the Amazonian biome, and the Valle del Putumayo in the Andes. There they will work with named Indigenous knowledge-holders Flérida Gutiérrez, an artisan, ceramicist and former cacique of the Agua Negra resguardo, and Mercedes Jacanamijoy, a master weaver whose practice centres on Astrocaryum malybo, or palma estera.
We spoke to Minche about what it means to document knowledge without separating it from the relationships that give it meaning – and why making knowledge visible must also mean recognising the people to whom it belongs.
Congratulations on receiving an LRG Research Fund award. What does this funding mean to you and your team?
Receiving the Landscape Research Fund award is both an honour and an important validation of the kind of research we believe is urgently needed. It demonstrates that landscape research can expand beyond the study of physical environments to understand the complex relationships between people, plants and territory.
For our team, this funding makes the research possible. It enables us to travel to the regions where this knowledge lives and document it directly with the people who hold it, working alongside Indigenous knowledge-holders in their own territories, where relationships between plants, people and territory are lived rather than observed.
Importantly, it allows us to test the Plant, Process, Memory methodology under real field conditions before applying it at a national scale through the Diccionario Material Colombiano. We hope the methodology will become a useful framework for others working across different cultural and ecological contexts.
Your project centres on the relationship between plants, people and territory. How did the idea for the Plant, Process, Memory framework first emerge?
The framework emerged from working alongside artisans and Indigenous knowledge-holders, and from realising how impossible it was to separate their understanding into the disciplinary fields we tend to use: ecology, gastronomy, biology, spirituality and anthropology. In their understanding, knowledge is not divided into disciplines; it is woven together.
Working with Indigenous communities across Colombia, I became increasingly aware that many of these systems of understanding are under profound pressure. Much of this knowledge is transmitted through oral traditions and, as these traditions disappear, so too does the accumulated understanding of how plants, materials and landscapes are cultivated, transformed and cared for.
The loss of practices such as the chagra – the Indigenous forest garden that functions as a living seed bank and ecological archive – does not simply mean the disappearance of crops, materials or techniques. It represents a transformation in the relationship between people and territory.
It became clear that the challenge was not simply to document plants, but to develop a way of documenting knowledge without fragmenting the relationships that give it meaning. Plant, Process, Memory emerged from that realisation.
You describe the framework as holding three different “voices” together on the page. Why was it important that botanical science, technical process and community memory should all be treated as equal forms of knowledge?
Every plant exists simultaneously as a botanical species, a material resource and a cultural relationship. Yet research often approaches these dimensions independently, when their richness lies precisely in the connections between them.
The Plant, Process, Memory framework therefore brings them together through three distinct voices, or epistemological registers. The botanical voice identifies the species and its ecological context. The process voice documents the technical knowledge that transforms a plant into a material. The memory voice records the lived relationships between people, plants and territory through the experiences of Indigenous knowledge-holders and artisans.
Rather than placing one register above another, the methodology allows them to coexist as complementary forms of evidence. Scientific taxonomy can identify a species, but cannot explain its cultural significance. Technical knowledge reveals how materials are transformed, but not why particular practices have endured for centuries. Community memory carries ecological knowledge, history, spirituality and values that are inseparable from the landscape itself.
Treating these voices as equals challenges the hierarchy that has traditionally privileged scientific knowledge while overlooking other rigorous ways of understanding landscape.
Much research documents plants or landscapes, but your project focuses on the knowledge held by Indigenous communities. What makes this knowledge so important to understanding landscape?
Indigenous knowledge is not simply knowledge about plants, material practices or territory. It represents a different way of understanding and relating to the world. Relationships are the thread that ties these dimensions together, giving coherence and meaning to the whole.
It reflects the ways communities have understood, shaped and cared for their territories over generations. These are not passive observations of nature, but living systems of stewardship that determine when to harvest, how much to take, how to encourage regeneration and how to live in balance with the landscape.
Too often, landscapes have been described from external perspectives, while the voices of people who have lived with them for centuries have remained at the margins. Their understanding reveals that botany, ecology, material practices, spirituality and everyday life are not separate domains, but part of the same living system.
Understanding landscape therefore means understanding the people whose knowledge has shaped it. Biodiversity and cultural knowledge cannot be separated: they have evolved together, and the future of one depends on the future of the other.
The project is rooted in close collaboration with named knowledge-holders rather than anonymous participants. How does this change the relationship between researcher and community?
Naming knowledge-holders acknowledges authorship. Too often, Indigenous communities have been treated as sources of data, while researchers become the recognised authors of the knowledge they document. Our project seeks to challenge that convention.
The ideas, practices and relationships documented through this project have been shaped over centuries. They belong to the people and communities who have developed, cared for and transmitted them across generations. Our role is not to claim authorship, but to develop a methodology that documents this knowledge while recognising its true authors.
Working alongside Indigenous communities has fundamentally reshaped the way I understand knowledge, materials and landscape. Our role is to create a bridge between different ways of understanding the world, without diminishing the integrity of either.
Your work spans Amazonian and Andean biomes. What do you hope to learn by working across these very different landscapes?
The Amazon and the Andes are ecologically, culturally and materially distinct, yet both reveal profound relationships between biodiversity, material culture and human knowledge.
By working across these contrasting biomes, I hope to better understand how different landscapes give rise to different systems of knowledge, each deeply rooted in the ecological and cultural conditions of the territory from which it emerges. Rather than searching for a universal model, I am interested in understanding how territory shapes knowledge, and how knowledge, in turn, shapes territory.
Working across both regions also allows us to test whether the Plant, Process, Memory methodology is sufficiently robust to document different ecological, linguistic and cultural contexts. If it can successfully adapt to landscapes as distinct as the Amazon and the Andes, it has the potential to become a methodology that can be applied in many other places.
You describe the project as intentionally decolonial. What does that mean in practical terms during fieldwork and when producing the final publication?
For us, a decolonial approach means creating conditions for epistemological parity. It means recognising that Indigenous knowledge does not need to be translated into, or validated by, academic knowledge in order to be legitimate. Neither system stands above the other.
In practice, this means recognising Indigenous knowledge-holders as the true authors of their knowledge, listening before documenting, and ensuring that botanical science, material practices and community memory are presented as equally valid ways of understanding territory rather than as a hierarchy of evidence.
Our role is not to speak for Indigenous communities, nor to translate one system of understanding into another. It is to create a methodology that allows different systems of understanding to enter into dialogue while remaining true to themselves.
The Diccionario Material Colombiano is an ambitious long-term project documenting more than 400 plant species. How does this pilot fit into that larger vision?
The Diccionario Material Colombiano emerged from the same question that gave rise to Plant, Process, Memory: how do we make visible a richness that has remained largely invisible?
Colombia has more than 400 plant species that are transformed into objects, houses and the material culture that shapes everyday life, particularly in rural and Indigenous territories. Yet much of this extraordinary material intelligence remains unknown beyond the communities that sustain it.
The project is therefore about much more than documenting plants. A maloca, for example, is far more than a building. Across many Indigenous cultures it is a place of spirituality, medicine, governance, dance and storytelling. All of those dimensions are embedded in the material itself and in the history of the plants from which it is made.
This pilot is the first step towards that larger vision. Before documenting more than 400 plant species across Colombia, we believe it is essential to validate a methodology capable of documenting not only biological resources, but also the cultural relationships that give them meaning.
Once validated, Plant, Process, Memory will become the methodological foundation of the Diccionario Material Colombiano.
Beyond academia, who do you hope will benefit most from the methodology and the open-access guide you are developing?
The communities themselves are the primary beneficiaries of this work. The project seeks to recognise the depth of their knowledge, acknowledge their authorship and help make visible a material intelligence that has too often remained invisible beyond their own territories.
As much of this understanding is transmitted orally, documenting it collaboratively can also contribute to its continuity, while recognising that it belongs to the people who have developed, cared for and transmitted it across generations.
Beyond the communities themselves, the methodology is intended for designers, architects, anthropologists, ecologists, educators, museums, conservation practitioners and policymakers. More than providing answers, it aims to encourage new questions and a different way of approaching biological resources – not simply as materials, but as expressions of relationships between people, plants and territory.
By making the methodology openly accessible, we hope it becomes a practical resource that others can adapt in different contexts.
Looking ahead, what would success look like at the end of this project?
Success would begin with the communities themselves finding value in the process. If they feel that the methodology represents their understanding with respect, recognises their authorship and captures the richness they see in their own plants, materials and territories, then we will have achieved something meaningful.
A second measure would be developing a methodology capable of acting as a bridge between different systems of understanding – not by simplifying them, but by creating a space where they can enter into dialogue while each retains its own integrity.
Ultimately, I hope Plant, Process, Memory demonstrates that every species embodies far more than biological information. Each plant carries ecological, technical, cultural and spiritual dimensions that cannot be understood in isolation. If the methodology succeeds in capturing that richness without fragmenting it, it will have fulfilled its purpose.
Finally, if readers remember just one thing about your research, what would you like it to be?
I would like readers to remember that behind every landscape lies a complex network of relationships between people, ecology, culture and memory. The material world we inhabit – our houses, objects and everyday artefacts – is one of the ways those relationships become visible.
Colombia holds an extraordinary material intelligence that remains largely invisible. Making that intelligence visible, while keeping it inseparable from the people and territories that sustain it, is ultimately what this research is about.
From fieldwork to a wider methodology
The LRG-funded pilot will put those principles into practice through two detailed field studies. Working with Flérida Gutiérrez in Milán, the team will document the transformation of Astrocaryum chambira, or cumare palm, alongside Korebaju terminology and cultural knowledge. In Valle del Putumayo, work with Mercedes Jacanamijoy will follow Astrocaryum malybo from harvesting and natural dyeing through to weaving, alongside its ecological and cultural meanings.
The wider research team includes Claudia Gómez Mejía, co-investigator on the Diccionario Material Colombiano; Paula Acosta, whose work extends the methodological thinking into Colombian clay and ceramic traditions; and research assistants Walther López and Camilo Méndez at the Creation Faculty, Universidad del Rosario.
Crucially, community review is built into the research process. Knowledge-holders will be able to review, amend or withdraw material before publication, while Indigenous terminology, process knowledge and accounts of cosmovision remain the intellectual property of the communities that hold them.
The resulting open-access bilingual Plant, Process, Memory: A Field Documentation Protocol is intended to take what is learned through these encounters beyond the two pilot landscapes.
But the project’s wider proposition remains rooted in those landscapes: to understand what grows in a place, we also need to understand the relationships through which people have learned to know, transform, care for and give meaning to it.