Pathway 01 — Ethnobotany
Ethnobotany: The Wild Joy of Plants
Plant knowledge is not a catalogue — it is a living archive of justice, healing, and resistance. Dr. Claudia J. Ford uncovers the hidden histories of ethnobotany through Native American, African American, and European American traditions.
● 3 modules
● 16 lessons
● 45 minutes
● All levels
Claudia J. Ford, PhD
Ethnobotanist
course overview
“When we get into the true histories and stories of plants, we can really appreciate the knowledge — and in doing so, we decolonize our own minds. This course is storytelling time. And it matters especially if you are in any kind of plant medicine or herbalist practice.”
what you will learn
Understand ethnobotany as a living discipline — how people across cultures and centuries have named, used, and transmitted plant knowledge
Examine the impact of colonialism and the transatlantic slave trade on the suppression and survival of traditional plant knowledge systems
Explore ethnogynecology — the history of medicinal plants in women’s reproductive health, childbirth, and postpartum care
Trace the cross-cultural circulation of plant knowledge between Native American, African American, and European American communities
Learn to read archival records, primary sources, and oral traditions as windows into historical plant-people relationships
Understand decolonization not as a historical moment but as an ongoing reclamation — and ethnobotany as a pathway into that work
course sYllabus
free preview — Module 1 · Lesson 1
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Ethnobotany: An Introduction, Gratitude for plant medicine Teachers and Overview
Dr. Ford opens not with a definition but with gratitude — naming the plant medicine teachers, elders, and scholars who shaped her thirty-five years of practice. She frames the course as “storytelling time,” asking students to listen for the hidden histories of plants and their relationship to trauma, justice, and the ongoing work of decolonization.
aprox: 4 minutes
about the instructor
Dr. Claudia J. Ford, PhD
Ethnobotanist
Dr. Claudia J. Ford has spent three and a half decades working at the intersection of plants, people, and justice — as a practicing midwife, a visual artist, and an environmental studies scholar. She is a professor at the State University of New York, Potsdam, a Fulbright Scholar, a Fellow of the Panel on Planetary Thinking at Justus Liebig University in Germany, and a Distinguished Visiting Research Professor at the University at Buffalo. Her doctoral research focused on ethnogynecology — the history of medicinal plants in women’s reproductive health across Native American, African American, and European American communities — drawing on over 3,000 plant species catalogued from 18 months of archival fieldwork. Her transdisciplinary scholarship holds science and spiritual ecology together without apology..
Ethnogynecology
Traditional ecological knowledge
Decolonizing ethnobotany
Women’s reproductive health
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