Lewis Daly

Lecturer in Social Anthropology of the Environment

Websites: UCL Anthropocene and TEA: The Ethnobotanical Assembly

Biography

Lewis Daly is a Lecturer in Social Anthropology of the Environment at UCL. He completed his doctorate (DPhil) in Anthropology at the University of Oxford in 2015, focusing on indigenous ecological knowledge and practices in the savannahs and rainforests of northern Amazonia. He has conducted over two years of ethnographic fieldwork with Makushi communities in southern Guyana and northern Brazil, focusing primarily on more-than-human engagements in the indigenous culture and cosmology. In particular, Lewis is interested in advancing a dedicated anthropology of plants, and has conducted research into agroecology, gardening, plant medicine, and plant use in ritual. His research is framed by an appraisal of the impact of conservation, ecotourism, and sustainable development on Makushi lifeways and environmental practices.

Lewis has conducted postdoctoral research projects with the Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi (MPEG) in Belém, Brazil, and the Ethno-ornithology World Atlas (EWA) at the University of Oxford. He is a Guest Lecturer in Ethnobiology at the Institute of Human Sciences at the University of Oxford, and in 2023, he will be a Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology (SAME) at Oxford.

Lewis is also the founder and co-editor of TEA: The Ethnobotanical Assembly – an open-access online journal about people-plant relationships.

Research Interests

Anthropology of Amazonia / lowland South America
Animism, perspectivism, shamanism, cosmology
Indigenous knowledge and indigenous rights
Historical ecology of tropical rainforests
Anthropology of plants / ethnobotany / phytoethnography
Anthropology of birds / ethno-ornithology
Agriculture, food processing, and fermentation technologies
Multispecies ethnography in the Anthropocene
Sensory ecology (chemosensation, olfaction, bioacoustics)
The politics of conservation, ecotourism, and sustainable development

Teaching

Lewis teaches across a range of undergraduate and postgraduate modules in Social and Environmental Anthropology, including:

ANTH0003/0004/0208: Introduction to Social Anthropology (UG)
ANTH0105: Resource Use and Impacts (PG)
ANTH0069: Ethnography of Forest Peoples (UG / PG)
ANTH0106: Anthropology of Development (PG)
ANTH0013. Theoretical Perspectives in Material Culture and Social Anthropology (UG)
ANTH0015: Being Human (UG)
ANTH0209: Biosocial Medical Anthropology (PG)
ANTH0127: Critical Issues in Social Anthropology (PG)

UCL Student Choice Awards | Nominations:

2017 – Outstanding Teaching
2018 – Outstanding Feedback
2019 – Outstanding Feedback

PhD Supervision

Alice Vittoria – Contested Forests in the Congo Basin: Logging, Conservation, and the BaYaka (Anthropology, 2018–)
Julian Riveros Clavijo – A Tale of Development and Migration: An Ethnography of Pacific African-Colombian Migrants in Antofagasta, Chile (Anthropology, 2019–)
Sarah Fischel – Multispecies Care and Coral Restoration in Bonaire, the Leeward Antilles (Geography, 2019–)
Juan Mejia Lopez – Reserves, Fishermen, NGOs, and Blue Crabs: The Multiple Makings of Guaimoreto Lagoon in Northern Honduras (Anthropology, 2020–)
Jack Jenkins-Hill – Revolutionary Forests: Conservation, Conflict, and Sovereignty in the Forests of Southern Myanmar (Anthropology, 2020–)
Sahib Singh – The Reluctant Forest: Resource Extraction, Dispossession, Resistance, and Ontological Conflicts in Central India (Anthropology, 2020–)
Matthew French – “Drift” Kelp and Multe “Gold”: Contemporary Human Foraging Amongst Edible Seaweed and Berries in Ireland and Norway (Anthropology, 2020–)
Sonia Dhandha – Conservation Prioritisation of Wild Orchids in International Trade (UCL Anthropology and Kew, 2020–)
Bo Yang – Symbiotic Species, Symbiotic Relationships: Pursuing More-than-human Liveability on the Tibetan Plateau (Anthropology, 2021–)
Catherine Clarke - Conservation Politics and Indigenous Rights in the Colombian Amazon: The Negotiation and Implementation of Area-Based Conservation Targets (Anthropology, 2021–)
Roy Ashton – How Does the Forest Speak? Tracking and Sensory Awareness among Forest-Dwelling Hunter-Gatherer Peoples (Anthropology, 2022–)

Recent Publications

Lewis has published in journals including Anthropological Forum, Anthropology Today, Medical Anthropology, Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford, Journal of Ethnobiology, Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine, Botany, TopiCS and Oryx, as well as various edited volumes, academic blogs, and magazines. He is currently working on his ethnographic monograph.

Daly, Lewis (in preparation) Fragrant Ecologies: On the Ethnobotany of Aromatic Tree Resins in Makushi Shamanic Healing. In L. Stafford (ed.), Smell, Taste, Eat: The Role of the Chemical Senses in Eating Behaviour. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Daly, Lewis (under review). “The Spirits Drink Cassava Beer”: Self-Care, Self-Help, and Communal Work in Amazonian Guyana. Medical Anthropology, Special Issue: Self-Care.
Shepard, Glenn H. and Lewis Daly (in press) Sensory Ecology and Bioeconomy in the Age of COVID-19: A Parallax View of Indigenous and Scientific Knowledge. Topics in Cognitive Science (TopiCS), Special Issue: Conceptual Foundations of Sustainability.
Marchini, S., A.R. Cummings, B.M. Arisi, C. Argudin-Violante, F. Süssekind, G.H. Shepard Jr., L. Daly, L.J. Bordones, L. Guiata, and M. Arias (2022) Multidisciplinary Team Highlights the Importance of Indigenous and Local Communities for Jaguar Conservation. Oryx 56(2): 5-6.
Shepard Jr., Glenn H. and Lewis Daly (2022) Sensory Ecologies, Plant-Persons, and Multinatural Landscapes in Amazonia. Botany, Special Issue: Ethnobotany and Ethnopharmacology of the Americas, 100(2): 83–96.
Daly, Lewis (2021) Cassava Spirit and the Seed of History: On Garden Cosmology in Northern Amazonia. Anthropological Forum, Special Issue: The Art of Gardens, 34(4):377–395.
Gibbon, S., L. Daly, A. Parkhurst, C. Ryan, G.D. Salali, and A. Tasker (2020) Biosocial Medical Anthropology in the Time of COVID-19: New Challenges and Opportunities. Medical Anthropology at UCL, 29 April 2020.
Daly, Lewis and Glenn H. Shepard Jr. (2019) Magic Darts and Messenger Molecules: Toward a Phytoethnography of Indigenous Amazonia. Anthropology Today, Special Issue: Ethnography of Plants, 35(2): 13–18.
Daly, Lewis (2019) The Nature of Sweetness: An Indigenous Fermentation Complex in Amazonian Guyana. In K. Hockings and R. Dunbar (eds.), Alcohol and Humans: A Long and Social Affair. Pp. 130–146. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Daly, Lewis and Kay Lewis-Jones (2018) Plant Worlds: Assembling the Ethnobotanical. TEA: The Ethnobotanical Assembly, Issue 1: Winter 2018.
Daly, Lewis, Luiseach Nic Eoin, Katherine French, and Theresa Miller (2016) Integrating Ontology into Ethnobotanical Research. Journal of Ethnobiology, Special Issue: Botanical Ontologies 36(1): 1–9.
Van Andel, T., S. Ruysschaert, K. Boven, and L. Daly (2015) The Use of Amerindian Charm Plants in the Guianas. Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine 11:66.
Daly, Lewis (2015) What Kind of People are Plants? The Challenges of Researching Human-Plant Relations in Amazonia. Engagement, Anthropology and Environment Society, American Anthropological Association (AAA). December 8, 2015.

Research Groups and Collaborations

Visiting Scholar, Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford (2023)
Member, Human Ecology Research Group (HERG), UCL
Founder, TEA: The Ethnobotanical Assembly
The Sensory Ecology of Shamanic Plants in Indigenous Amazonia – Museu Emílio Goeldi Paraense (MPEG), Belém, Brazil
The Role of Local Bird Knowledge in Avian Conservation – Ethno-ornithology World Atlas (EWA), University of Oxford and BirdLife International

Editorial Work

Founder and co-editor – TEA: The Ethnobotanical Assembly, an open-access online magazine about people-plant relationships
Editor – Anthropolitan, the annual magazine and blog of UCL Anthropology
Editorial board member – Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford
Advisory board member – Critical Plant Studies, Lexington Books
Guest editor – Botanical Ontologies, Special Issue of the Journal of Ethnobiology, 2016, 36(1): 1–149.

Conference Organisation

2017 – Plant Worlds, Centre for Biocultural Diversity (CBCD), School of Anthropology and Conservation, University of Kent
2014 – Botanical Ontologies, The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH), University of Oxford