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The ethnobiology is a science that analyzes the plurality of knowledge about nature. What are the steps for setting up a discipline which today managed to spread so widely the importance of “biocultural diversity”? This article analyzes the specificity of the Mexican trajectory of ethnobiology by focusing on the link between institutionalization and multiple extra-scientific connections. The approach, combining social study of science with political sociology, allows to emphasize a different periodization from that endorsed at international level. The Mexican ethnobiology studied in this article is also that of a generation (1970-2015) mobilized in support of traditional knowledge but also of a project of alternative society. It has a two stages trajectory: that of alternative rural development and reversing the stigma on traditional knowledge (1970 and 80’s), and that of participation to new environmental institutions and the creation of the program of “double conservation” (1990 and 2000’s). A new phase now opens where the discipline of ethnobiology is oriented towards patrimonialization as well as towards academic institutionalization and international integration. This analysis makes it possible to highlight the stakes of positioning a discipline that seeks scientific legitimacy while seeking to transform its modalities.