Cultural vs. State Borders: Plant Foraging by Hawraman and Mukriyan Kurds in Western Iran

A study on the Cultural Landscape of Hawraman/Uramanat reveals that cultural borders significantly influence plant foraging practices more than political divisions among Kurdish communities. Research involving 43 interviews with Hawramani and Mukriyan Kurds in Western Iran identified 44 wild food plant taxa, noting distinct differences between the two groups while highlighting a strong similarity between Hawramani Kurds in Iran and Iraq. The findings suggest that ethnobotanical knowledge is shaped more by cultural than state boundaries, challenging conventional perceptions of its distribution.

Sulaiman, N., Salehi, F., Prakofjewa, J., Cavalleri, S. A. E., Ahmed, H. M., Mattalia, G., Rastegar, A., Maghsudi, M., Amin, H. M., Rasti, A., Hosseini, S. H., Ghorbani, A., Pieroni, A., & Sõukand, R. (2024). Cultural vs. State Borders: Plant Foraging by Hawraman and Mukriyan Kurds in Western Iran. Plants, 13(7), 1048. https://doi.org/10.3390/plants13071048