Ethnobotany in Albania - a transition from folk knowledge to cultural popular studies (1946-1991)

Albania can be considered a country rich in biocultural diversity as a reflection of his high biologic diversity alternated with a rich ethnocultural history. This paper is a historical review of ethnobotanical data on wild and cultivated plants, including the uses and values ​​of medicinal plants, collected through a bibliographic search of various sources written and published in the second phase of ethnobiology (1950 - 1991) (corresponding to the period of the socialist state). The second phase (1950-1991), namely as "the autochthonous ethnobiology of socialism" was developed during the time of communism in the history of Albania and corresponds to the emic and systemic phase. The studies of this period were dominated by the studies of traditional culture and folklore, ethnic culture, popular culture, which is often translated into English as "popular culture studies", taken to mean the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, images and social organization. This review aims to explore how ethnobotanical knowledge was collected, created, and used during the socialist period, not intending to be an exhaustive review of all the materials on this subject.