Maya mobile medicine in Guatemala: the "other" public health

Maya mobile medical providers in highland Guatemala and the goods and services that they offer from "soapboxes" on street corners, local markets, and on buses exemplify an important yet underinvestigated domain of localized health care, one that I refer to as the "other" public health. This medical and linguistic examination of traveling medical salespeople calls for a reconsideration (on a global scale) of what has come to be understood as "public health," arguing that "othered," local forms of public health that are often overlooked by anthropologists as "nontraditional" and delegitimized by bio-medicine as nonscientific merit serious consideration and investigation. This ethnography of marginalized forms of public health offers global insights into emerging heterodoxical forms of public health care that contest bio-medical authority and challenge our preexisting definitions of what counts as "access," wellness seeking, and even health care itself.     

Adoption of Liquefied Petroleum Gas Stoves in Guatemala: A Mixed-Methods Study

Household air pollution is the sixth leading risk factor for premature mortality in Guatemala. Households in Guatemala are gradually adopting liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) stoves, but a strong tradition of woodstove use persists. We conducted a mixed-methods study of LPG stove use in peri-urban Guatemala. We used knowledge, attitudes and practices surveys with 187 LPG stove owners who also used woodstoves to identify perceptions of stove and cooking practices. Barriers to sustained use of LPG stoves were evaluated through focus groups, participant observations with stove users, and key informant interviews with community leaders. Seven themes emerged that explain household decisions to use LPG stoves: (1) The “new technology” should be framed in terms of what the “old technology” lacks, (2) income is not a predictor of gas stove acquisition but may predict sustained use, (3) men are key decision-makers but messages about LPG do not target them, (4) when stoves are viewed as “prize possessions” they may not be used, (5) collective fear about gas stoves is not based on personal experience, but on “stories we hear,” (6) sustained LPG use is hampered by two major factors, seasonally available wood and LPG retailers who are perceived as dishonest, and (7) wood fuel collection is a time to enjoy the company of friends and family and is not “drudgery.” National policies should promote the use of clean cookstove technologies in peri-urban and rapidly urbanizing areas in Guatemala where LPG stoves are in use, but used intermittently, instead of the current plan to install 100,000 “improved” woodstoves by 2032. This could be done by improving dependable cylinder distribution services, targeting gas safety and promoting positive health messages that appeal to men, as well as women.     

Worker rehabilitation programs. Separating fact from fiction.

A few worker rehabilitation programs have had outstanding success in improving ability to function for persons with occupational back pain. Local programs must show that they have similar success. Because the definitions of terms such as "back school," "work hardening," and "functional restoration" are blurred at a local level, the choice of a program for an individual patient must depend primarily on the program''s demonstrated success rate with similar patients. The chances of returning to work decrease as a function of time after injury. Therefore, referring physicians, insurers, and employers must be provided with information regarding results in terms of acute (0 to 6 weeks), subacute (7 to 12 weeks), and chronic (more than 12 weeks) back pain. Other important variables include selection criteria, program cost, and dropout rate. We advocate standardized reporting of such data for all worker rehabilitation programs. A model "report to consumers," described here, is a minimal obligation. The validity of a number of important internal quality assurance issues is uncertain. Ethical and legal pressures must be recognized.     

The use of zootherapeutics in folk veterinary medicine in the district of Cubati, Paraíba State, Brazil

Background

Viewed through the micro focus of an interpretive lens, medical anthropology remains mystified because interpretivist explanations seriously downplay the given context in which individual health seeking-behaviours occur. This paper draws upon both the interpretivist and political economy perspectives to reflect on the ethno medical practices within the Korean-Australian community in Sydney.

Methods

We draw on research data collected between 1995 and 1997 for an earlier study of the use of biomedical and traditional medicine by Korean-Australians in Sydney. A total of 120 interviews were conducted with a range of participants, including biomedical doctors, traditional health professionals, Korean community leaders and Korean migrants representing a range of socio-economic backgrounds and migration patterns.

Results and Discussion

First, the paper highlights the extent to which the social location of migrants in a host society alters or restructures their initial cultural practices they bring with them. Second, taking hanbang medicine in the Korean-Australian community as an illustrative case, the paper explores the transformation of the dominant biomedicine in Australia as a result of the influx of ethnomedicine in the era of global capitalism and global movement.

Conclusion

In seeking to explain the popularity and supply of alternative health care, it is important to go beyond the culture of each kind of health care itself and to take into consideration the changes occurring at societal, national and global levels as well as consequential individual response to the changes. New social conditions influence the choice of health care methods, including herbal/alternative medicine, health foods and what are often called New Age therapies.     

Ethnographic empathy and the social context of rights: “rescuing” Maasai girls from early marriage

Esther is one of many young Maasai girls in Kenya "rescued" from early marriage. Her story is conventionally portrayed (trans)nationally and locally as a struggle between conservative pastoral patriarchs and the individual right of young girls to an education. I offer an ethnographic contextualization of the underlying factors giving rise to practices of early marriage, among the Maasai in Enkop, highlighting the contemporary predicaments of pastoralism in the face of population growth, climactic instability, and land-tenure reform and the insecurities and challenges around formal education. Through the intimate portrayal of Esther's case, early marriage is situated not as a relic of tradition and malicious patriarchy but, rather, as a contemporary adaptation to livelihood insecurity. I illustrate how prevailing concepts of "tradition," "culture," "victimhood," and "collective rights" in human rights theory obscure important structural factors that give rise to early marriage and deflect attention from effective policy initiatives.     

Del Istmo大学总体规划——第一期工程

Del Istmo大学的新校园坐落于危地马拉市边迅速发展的圣伊莎贝尔社区。这个49公顷的基地掩映在美丽的山坡与山谷中。大学希望扩招至6200名学生，计划在20年内分期实现。大学教学宗旨与目标包括对个人以及周边社区的高度关注。新校园的空间形式是大学对社会目标的回应，与推进现代学习关系的体现。考虑到影响基地的生态力与系统，新建筑充分考虑位置与朝向，促进自然通风与光线引入。校园是可持续策略的典范。     

Variation in grazing management practices supports diverse butterfly communities across grassland working landscapes

Landscape changes and resource exploitation have driven global biodiversity declines and reduced provision of ecological functions and services. In grassland working landscapes managed for ecological services and livestock production, it is essential to understand the influence of grazing practices on biodiversity to guide conservation. We used grassland butterflies to investigate the effects of four grazing management practices on biodiversity and pollination services from 2015 to 2016. We hypothesized grazing management practices would generate differing floristic resources that would thereby influence grassland butterfly community composition. To address our hypothesis, we sampled floral resources using belt transects and butterfly community and species level dynamics using line-transect distance sampling. We detected 2578 butterflies representing 34 species. Management practice was not a significant predictor of floral (p?=?0.319) or butterfly community composition (p?=?0.604), and sites under the same management showed dissimilarity in ordination space, indicating differences that may not be associated with grazing practices. At the species level, management explained density for six of nine butterfly species, but no individual management practice was optimal for a majority of detected species. Thus, over the timeframe of this study, grazing management practices did not generate differences in floristic community composition to drive community-level responses in grassland butterflies. Rather, management drove differences in individual species’ abundance within the butterfly community, likely contributing to the butterfly diversity observed at a broader scale.     

The evolution of fairness in a biological market

Human beings universally express a concern for the fairness of social interactions, and it remains an open question that which ultimate factors led to the evolution of this preference. Here, we present a model accounting for the evolution of fairness on the basis of individual selection alone. We consider a simple social interaction based on the Dictator Game. Two individuals, a "proposer" and a "responder," have an opportunity to split a resource. When they have no choice but to interact together, the most powerful (here the proposer) reaps all the profits and fairness cannot evolve. Partner choice is the key lever to overcome this difficulty. Rather than just two individuals, we consider a population composed of two classes of individuals (either proposers or responders), and we allow the responders to choose their partner. In such a "biological market," fairness evolves as an "equilibrium price," resulting from an ecological equivalent of the law of supply and demand. If a class is disadvantaged by the chosen resource partition (i.e., if it frequently receives less than half of the resource), it is outcompeted by the other one, and automatically becomes rarer. This rarity grants it an advantage on the market, which yields in turn to the evolution of a more favorable partition. Splitting the resource into two identical halves, or more generally in a way that equalizes the payoffs of the two classes, is then the only evolutionarily stable outcome. Beyond human fairness, this mechanism also opens up new ways of explaining the distribution of benefits in many mutualistic interactions.     

National asthma attack audit 1991-2. General Practitioners in Asthma Group.

OBJECTIVE--To describe the frequency and characteristics of asthma attacks in the United Kingdom and to compare actual management with recommended guidelines for the management of attacks. DESIGN--Correspondence survey. SETTING--218 general practices in the United Kingdom. SUBJECTS--1775 patients of all ages who had a total of 1805 asthma attacks over three months. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES--Patient characteristics, place of management of attacks, comparison of actual management with recommended guidelines. RESULTS--Of the 1805 attacks, 300 occurred in boys aged 0-9, 144 in girls aged 0-9, and 118 in women aged 20-29. The estimated frequency of attacks in the community was 14.3 per 1000 patients per year. 1546 (86%) patients with attacks were managed within general practice, 225 (12%) were admitted to hospital, and 34 (2%) were discharged from an accident and emergency department. Two patients died. On initial presentation, 248 (14%) patients were "not breathless," 900 (50%) were "moderately breathless," 535 (30%) were "breathless and distressed," 68 (4%) were "too breathless to talk," and 2 were "moribund." Recording of clinical data was variable. Underuse of nebulised bronchodilators and systemic steroid was apparent in all grades of clinical severity. Contrary to current guidelines for asthma management, "step up" in maintenance therapy after an attack was often not practised. CONCLUSION--Reported management was at variance with recommended guidelines. This has major implications for the design and distribution of future guidelines.     

"Showing roughness in a beautiful way": talk about love, coercion, and rape in South African youth sexual culture

Sexual violence within as well as outside sexual relationships has far-reaching public health and human rights implications and is a continuing focus of popular debate, media coverage, and research in postapartheid South Africa. Partly because it has been shown to affect individual vulnerability to HIV/AIDS, sexual violence has in recent years become framed as a global public health issue. International research efforts to document the scale of this personally and politically sensitive problem can encounter conceptual, definitional, and methodological difficulties that anthropology is well placed to assist in alleviating. This article offers an ethnographic exploration of the spectrum of practices relating to sexual coercion and rape among young people in a township in the former Transkei region of South Africa. Contextualizing meanings of sexual coercion within local youth sexual culture, the article considers two emic categories associated with sex that is "forced": ukulala ngekani: "to sleep with by force" or ukunyanzela: "to force," both usually used to describe episodes occurring within sexual partnerships; and ukudlwengula, used to describe rape by a nonpartner or stranger. The article discusses the semantic content of and differences between these two key categories, demonstrating that encounters described as "forced sex" encompass not only various forms of sexual coercion but also, particularly in the narratives of young men, instances of more consensual sex. Of importance, in turn, in defining an act as "rape" rather than as "forced sex" are the character of the relationship between the two parties and interlinked ideas relating to exchange and sexual entitlement, love, and the importance of "intention," violation, and "deserving" victimhood.     

Social Standards as Stabilizing Factors of the "Social Mind"

In our everyday lives we constantly encounter phenomena that, through facts of the behavior of particular individuals, cannot be understood merely by a psychological analysis of an isolated human being. We read that "the collective was seized by the enthusiasm of labor," or "the stadium began to hoot indignantly," or "the spectators jumped up from their seats as a man," etc. A psychological analysis of such phenomena immediately raises a number of complex problems. What is the nature of these common psychological manifestations? How do they embrace many people? How do they affect the mind of each discrete individual?     

Collective detection in escape responses of temporary groups of Iberian green frogs

When confronted with a predator, prey are often in close proximityto conspecifics. This situation has generated several hypothesesregarding antipredator strategies adopted by individuals withingroups of gregarious species, such as the "risk dilution," "earlydetection," or "collective detection" effects. However, whethershort-term temporary aggregations of nongregarious animals arealso influenced in their escape decisions by nearby conspecificsremains little explored. We simulated predator approaches togreen frogs (Rana perezi) in the field while they were foragingat the edge of water, either alone or spatially aggregated intemporary clusters. "Flight initiation distances" of frogs (i.e.,the distance between the simulated predator and the frog atthe time it jumped) that escaped by jumping into the water wereinfluenced by microhabitat variables (vegetation at the edgeand in water and the initial distance of the frog to the closestwater edge) and also by the responses of nearby individuals.In clusters, risk dilution did not influence the first individualto respond to the predator simulation or the average responseof all frogs in the cluster as the frog's responses were independentof group size. Also, flight initiation distances of individualsthat first responded to the predator within clusters did notdiffer from those of solitary individuals, which is contraryto the predictions of the early detection hypothesis. However,the remaining frogs in the cluster had longer flight initiationdistances than expected from the comparison with solitary individuals.We suggest that this pattern originated because the responseof the first frog within a cluster triggered the sequentialresponse of the remaining frogs in the cluster, which agreeswith the expectations from the collective detection hypothesis.Our findings give insight into an early stage in the evolutionof grouping as they suggest that individual frogs may benefitfrom being part of a cluster, even for short periods of time.     

The Absorption Hypothesis: Learning to Hear God in Evangelical Christianity

ABSTRACT  In this article, we use a combination of ethnographic data and empirical methods to identify a process called "absorption," which may be involved in contemporary Christian evangelical prayer practice (and in the practices of other religions). The ethnographer worked with an interdisciplinary team to identify people with a proclivity for "absorption." Those who seemed to have this proclivity were more likely to report sharper mental images, greater focus, and more unusual spiritual experience. The more they prayed, the more likely they were to have these experiences and to embrace fully the local representation of God. Our results emphasize learning, a social process to which individuals respond in variable ways, and they suggest that interpretation, proclivity, and practice are all important in understanding religious experience. This approach builds on but differs from the approach to religion within the culture-and-cognition school.     

Unexpected population distribution in a microbial mat community: sulfate-reducing bacteria localized to the highly oxic chemocline in contrast to a eukaryotic preference for anoxia.

The distribution and abundance of sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB) and eukaryotes within the upper 4 mm of a hypersaline cyanobacterial mat community were characterized at high resolution with group-specific hybridization probes to quantify 16S rRNA extracted from 100-microm depth intervals. This revealed a preferential localization of SRB within the region defined by the oxygen chemocline. Among the different groups of SRB quantified, including members of the provisional families "Desulfovibrionaceae" and "Desulfobacteriaceae," Desulfonema-like populations dominated and accounted for up to 30% of total rRNA extracted from certain depth intervals of the chemocline. These data suggest that recognized genera of SRB are not necessarily restricted by high levels of oxygen in this mat community and the possibility of significant sulfur cycling within the chemocline. In marked contrast, eukaryotic populations in this community demonstrated a preference for regions of anoxia.     

Behavioral processes and costs of co-existence in female spotted hyenas: a life history perspective

We assessed the importance of three behavioral processes on the fitness of individual females as mediated via maternal care in matrilineally organized social groups of spotted hyenas Crocuta crocuta. These were maternal choice of foraging tactic, the maintenance of individual dominance rank (social status) within the adult female hierarchy, and the behavioral support provided by mothers to their daughters when daughters acquired their position in the adult female hierarchy. The effects of all behavioral processes were closely linked. Maternal care was dependent on maternal social status because high ranking females had priority of access to food, and individual maternal choice of foraging tactic was frequency – and social status-dependent when medium prey abundance provided an opportunity for such a choice. At medium prey abundance, low ranking females went on costly long distance commuting trips to forage on migratory herds outside the group territory, whereas high ranking females fed on kills within the group territory. As a consequence, offspring of high ranking females grew faster, had a higher chance of survival to adulthood, and thus high ranking females had a higher lifetime reproductive success. Daughters of high ranking females usually acquired a social status immediately below that of their mother provided they enjoyed the effective support from their mothers as coalition partners, and they gave birth to their first litter at an earlier age than daughters of low ranking mothers. Spotted hyenas are therefore an example of the silver-spoon effect. This study shows that the frequency-dependent outcome of behavioral processes can be a key determinant of maternal reproductive success in social carnivores and have a profound influence on the reproductive career prospects of offspring.     

Lack of evidence for a marked endogenous component determining food intake in humans during forced desynchrony

In an attempt to investigate the relative importance of endogenous and exogenous factors in determining food intake, 14 healthy subjects were studied while living in an Isolation Unit (where external time cues were absent) for eighteen 28 h "days" (equal to 21 solar days). The subjects were free to spend their waking time as they chose, and they had a free choice of what they ate and when they ate it. The only restrictions were that no naps were allowed in the "daytime," that some time was required to perform a variety of tests at regular intervals throughout the 18.67 h waking periods, and that any food preparation had to be performed by the subjects themselves. Core (rectal) temperature and activity were monitored throughout, and the subjects answered a questionnaire on their eating habits at 3 h intervals during the waking periods. The questionnaire investigated reasons for eating or not eating a meal during the previous 3 h and, if a meal had been eaten, its type, the factors influencing that choice, and the subjects' subjective responses (hunger before, enjoyment during, and satiety after) to it. The results were analyzed (two-way ANOVA) in terms of both the imposed day length (the exogenous component) and the free-running period of the temperature rhythm (the endogenous component). Results indicated that by far the main reason for eating/not eating was hunger/lack of hunger rather than factors such as food availability and time-pressure. There were statistically significant effects of time within the imposed waking periods upon the type of meal eaten--"breakfast" tending to be a snack, "lunch" a small hot meal, and the "evening meal" a large hot meal. Hot meals (whether small or large) were associated with more hunger before the meal, more enjoyment of the meal, and a greater degree of satiety afterward than were cold meals. These effects suggest that the individuals adjusted their eating habits to fit in with the imposed wake times. By contrast, the effect of circadian phase upon food intake, the type of meal eaten, and subjective responses to the meal was much weaker, and either statistically nonsignificant (P > 0.10) or only marginally so (0.10 > P > 0.05). For example, a large hot meal was chosen as readily for an "evening meal," and subjective responses to it were the same, at whatever circadian phase it was eaten. We conclude that food intake during forced desynchronization is dominated by the waking schedule rather than by circadian influences; some of the implications of these findings when eating habits and the metabolism of food are concerned, particularly in night workers, are considered briefly.     

Within-species variation and measurement error in phylogenetic comparative methods

Most phylogenetically based statistical methods for the analysis of quantitative or continuously varying phenotypic traits assume that variation within species is absent or at least negligible, which is unrealistic for many traits. Within-species variation has several components. Differences among populations of the same species may represent either phylogenetic divergence or direct effects of environmental factors that differ among populations (phenotypic plasticity). Within-population variation also contributes to within-species variation and includes sampling variation, instrument-related error, low repeatability caused by fluctuations in behavioral or physiological state, variation related to age, sex, season, or time of day, and individual variation within such categories. Here we develop techniques for analyzing phylogenetically correlated data to include within-species variation, or "measurement error" as it is often termed in the statistical literature. We derive methods for (i) univariate analyses, including measurement of "phylogenetic signal," (ii) correlation and principal components analysis for multiple traits, (iii) multiple regression, and (iv) inference of "functional relations," such as reduced major axis (RMA) regression. The methods are capable of incorporating measurement error that differs for each data point (mean value for a species or population), but they can be modified for special cases in which less is known about measurement error (e.g., when one is willing to assume something about the ratio of measurement error in two traits). We show that failure to incorporate measurement error can lead to both biased and imprecise (unduly uncertain) parameter estimates. Even previous methods that are thought to account for measurement error, such as conventional RMA regression, can be improved by explicitly incorporating measurement error and phylogenetic correlation. We illustrate these methods with examples and simulations and provide Matlab programs.     

Intergradation among Latin American maize based on an analysis of chromosome knob frequencies

Summary Published information on chromosome knobs found at 21 knob-forming positions and on abnormal 10 and B chromosomes in maize, Zea mays L., was used to place maize populations within a multidimensional space based on frequencies. From this space, similarities among populations were determined using a measure of gentic diversity based on a modified Cartesian distance. Populations were portrayed in 2 (or 3) dimensions based on these distances. The objective was to investigate patterns of migration that had occurred among indigenous populations of maize from Latin America. Widely dispersed collections classified as Tuxpeño had similar knob constitutions. Collections from Guatemala reflected continuous migration among adjacent areas with increased isolation (or association of knob types) with increased altitude of collection. Maize from southeastern Guatemala and their southeastern neighbours were similar. The high elevation collections from Guatemala and Mexico were surprisingly similar. The data reflected three distinct phenomena: long-term intergradation of maize germplasm among adjacent areas (as would result from pollen drift between closely cultivated areas or from seed exchange among neighbors), major, relatively recent shifts in gene flow (as had occurred with Tuxpeño's widespread distribution in Mexico), and precolonial dispersions (as between maize populations from the high elevations in Guatemala and Mexico).Paper No. 8846 of the Journal Series of the North Carolina Agricultural Research Service, Raleigh, NC, USA     

On Negating Positivism: An Anthropological Dialectic

Continuing a discussion initiated by Paul Roscoe in the pages of this journal, this essay situates positivism as a social and philosophic movement adversarily responding to the "negative dialectic" of 18th- and 19th-century critical philosophy. Notably, positivistic ideologies and practices have been manifest in cultural anthropology, linguistic analysis without "meaning," and "the new archaeology." Because funding agencies have accepted the positivistic claim that it embodies "the scientific method," interpretivists and other dissidents have had to become "rice positivists," while graduate programs have required that research be fitted into a scenario of "hypothesis testing" of "theoretical problems."     

On the Rise and Fall of Tuláns and Maya Segmentary States

An approach integrating ethnohistory, ethnography, and settlement pattern archeology allows a series of "ontogenetic stages" with segmentary lineage behaviors to be delineated for the Post-classic Quiché-Maya state at Utatlán, Guatemala. Comparisons to the Postclassic states in lowland southern Mesoamerica (e.g., Chichén Itzé, Mayapán) assess the segmentary state model. In each, intrusive lineages migrated to coalesce into confederacies that exemplified decentralized authority and common descent. Then the polities suddenly dissoluted, with disarticulated segments again migrating to commence the cycle anew. As a documented case of growth and near collapse of a Maya segmentary state, the Quiché are traced from intrusive, nearly egalitarian Putún lineages through successive tiers of "confederation" in which various ethnic peoples first voluntarily allied and then were coerced into subordination. Utatlán inherited the mantle of rulership of the Lowland Maya "great tradition," heretofore vested in the Tuláns. By so doing, the Quiché acquired symbols of rulership, such as full quadripartition of the calendar and a literary tradition, whereby the Popol Vuh presented general Mayan mythology and specific Quiché history. Incipient economic specialization occurred after state formation within otherwise mechanical solidarity-like lineages linked according to the cardinality of the calendar.