Sylvie Planel
Department, Institution: Department of Anthropology, UCL
UBEL Pathway: Anthropology
Supervisor: Dr Emily Woodhouse
Contact details: sylvie.planel.22@alumni.ucl.ac.uk
About Me
I grew up in France and the UK. After an undergraduate degree in social sciences, I worked as a vegetable grower, and was involved in campaigns around social and environmental justice. I returned to academia in 2022 to do the MSc in Environmental Anthropology at UCL, followed in 2023 by an Environmental History masters at EHESS in Paris.
I love hiking, cycling and growing food, as well singing with others and reading books.
My Research
My research explores the biocultural heritage of vegetable seeds in the French Alps. Through ethnobotanical research, I will identify local vegetable varieties still being cultivated today, as well as those that have been lost, documenting the practices, traditional ecological knowledge and stories that surround them, and analyse how seeds have been produced and exchanged at the margins of a growing global seed industry.
Impact of My Research
At a time of huge loss of vegetable crops and varieties, I will be working with grassroot organisations to study folk varieties and the knowledge and practices that surround them, as a way of remembering those varieties lost, and to support the revival of those still in existence.
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