Abstract
Ethnobiology was not only created as a field to understand the relationship between humans and their environments; it emerged from direct engagement with rural and Indigenous communities. Yet the great paradox is that, despite its field-based origins, the discipline continues to be reproduced within urban academic spaces that often exclude those who are assumed to be at the very heart of knowledge production. In this editorial, we do not simply propose the "inclusion" of rural or Indigenous communities. Instead, we call for a radical repositioning of the knowledge itself: Who can be considered a "scientist"? And who holds the authority to define scientific knowledge? We reject the assumption that urban academic affiliation or formal credentials are the sole basis for scientific credibility, and instead propose a different standard: knowledge should be assessed by its depth, explanatory power, and integrity when co-produced in genuine partnership with living communities. Drawing on our own experiences as researchers raised in rural villages, peripheral regions, and migrant/refugees' communities, we argue that local and Indigenous ecological knowledge is not a "raw material" for scientific research, but a form of scientific thinking in its own right with its own logic, observations, and rigour, and its own way of assessing, adapting and enacting this knowledge. We therefore call for a further step ahead in the classical structure of ethnobiology: not merely the inclusion of communities in research stages, but the recognition of some of their scholars as the core producers of scientific knowledge, from the formulation of research questions to the interpretation, dissemination and enactment of results. This transformation of the locus aims not only to improve ethnobiology as a field but also to redefine it. Without this redefinition, science will remain detached from the realities it claims to understand. With it, ethnobiology can become a more honest, more courageous discipline, better equipped to confront biodiversity loss, climate change, and the reconfiguration of more-than-human-nature relationships.