Pathway 01 — ethnobotany
Out of Africa: Ethnobotanical Conversations on the Atlantic world
How did enslaved Africans preserve living plant traditions across 5,000 kilometres of ocean? Bob Voeks traces the botanical, spiritual, and culinary heritage of the African diaspora — from Yoruba Candomblé ceremonies to the street foods of Bahia.
● 6 modules
● 21 lessons
● 45 minutes
● Focused
Bob Voeks, PhD
Ethnobotanist
course overview
“Of all the peoples forced to recreate their relationship with the plant world in an alien landscape, none faced greater obstacles than the enslaved Africans of the Atlantic slave trade. This course asks how they managed it — and what that extraordinary act of botanical continuity reveals about the deep roots of diaspora culture.”
what you will learn
Understand the scale and geography of the Atlantic slave trade and its implications for the transfer of African plant knowledge
Explore the Yoruba spiritual tradition of Candomblé — its Orixás, healing rituals, and the ethnobotanical flora associated with each deity
Examine how African diaspora communities adapted Old World plant traditions to a new flora through substitution and continuity
Trace the role of the Columbian Exchange in enabling the survival and transmission of African botanical heritage in the Americas
Analyse case studies — Abafé, Iroko, Castor Bean, Bitter Melon, Acarajé, Dendê, Caruru — as evidence of transatlantic plant continuity
Recognise African contributions to Brazilian bio-cultural landscapes, including street food traditions as acts of cultural resistance
course sYllabus
free preview — Module 1 · Lesson 2
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Personal Encounter and the African Diaspora
Bob Voeks recounts the field encounter in Bahia that set the course of his career — a sedge plant called Danda-da-costa, meaning “of the African coast,” used in Candomblé ceremony. He traces how that single plant led him to a career-defining question: how did enslaved Africans manage to recreate their botanical traditions across an ocean, in an entirely alien flora?
aprox: 3 minutes
No Signup Required · Free For Everyone
about the instructor
Bob Voeks, PhD
Ethnobotanist
Bob Voeks is one of the world’s leading ethnobotanists working at the intersection of diaspora, ecology, and sacred plant traditions. His decades of fieldwork along the Atlantic coast of Brazil — in the Candomblé communities of Bahia — produced the landmark study Sacred Leaves of Candomblé, which established the scholarly foundation for understanding African diaspora ethnobotany in the Americas. A biogeographer by training, Voeks approaches plant-people relations with both rigorous ecological analysis and deep respect for the living traditions he studies. His work recovering the overlooked contributions of enslaved Africans to Brazilian botanical heritage represents some of the most important scholarship in contemporary ethnobotany.
African diaspora ethnobotany
Candomblé healing flora
Biogeography
Columbian Exchange
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