Intra-population variation in anemia status and its relationship to economic status and self-perceived health in the Mexican Family Life Survey: Implications for bioarchaeology

Recently scholars have advocated for the use of a critical biocultural approach in bioarchaeology, where osteological and dental markers of stress are used to understand the broader biosocial context of past populations. However, the ability to accomplish this task rests on the assumption that ultimate-level environmental stressors and well-being in the past can be reconstructed from the prevalence of pathologies in skeletal collections. Here we test this assumption using anemia prevalence in the Mexican Family Life Survey. Specifically we test three hypotheses: (1) that individuals sharing the same household are more likely to share anemia status; (2) anemia status is a predictor of economic status (a common proxy for broader environmental context); and (3) anemia status is related to self-rated health. Results demonstrate that: anemia status was not commonly shared between household members; there was a significant overlap in economic status between anemic and nonanemic individuals (i.e., anemia poorly predicted economic status) and; while anemia status was associated with self-perceived health, the majority of those who reported poor health were nonanemic while a significant number of those who reported very good health were anemic. We argue that these findings are likely related to variation in individual frailty, which is shaped by biological and cultural risk factors. Therefore, we advocate for greater incorporation of individual frailty into bioarchaeological investigations, and, in effort to overcome some of the difficulties associated with this task, increased use of data from living populations and greater collaboration between bioarchaeologists and human biologists. Am J Phys Anthropol 155:210–220, 2014. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Ecosystem Approach to Rapid Health Assessments among Indigenous Cultures in Degraded Tropical Rainforest Environments: Case Study of Unexplained Deaths among the Secoya of Ecuador

Large-scale economically-driven encroachments into tropical rainforest environments are major factors for disease emergence. A better understanding of the process of disease emergence can be best derived from a multilevel, transdisciplinary ecosystem approach that analyzes health data in its biological, ecological, social, and cultural context. Multiple methods, including ethnographic techniques, are recommended for such an approach. The value of this approach and methodology is presented in this article through a rapid health assessment case study of an unexplained fatal syndrome that occurred among the Secoya peoples of the Ecuadorian Amazon in 1999. This type of study is significant given the lack of health data for indigenous populations at risk of disease emergence. Moreover, indigenous cultures share a long-term, close relationship to the land and each other, which makes information about changes in their environment and health patterns highly salient to them. This local knowledge is of strategic value to researchers working on issues of environmental change and disease emergence.     

How Do Real Indians Fish? Neoliberal Multiculturalism and Contested Indigeneities in the Colorado Delta

ABSTRACT   There has been a growing interest in anthropology regarding how certain political conditions set the stage for "articulations" between indigenous movements and environmental actors and discourses. However, relatively little attention has been paid to how these same conditions can suppress demands for indigenous rights. In this article, I argue that the pairing of neoliberalism and multiculturalism in contemporary Mexico has created political fields in which ethnic difference has been foregrounded as a way of denying certain rights to marginalized groups. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in northern Mexico, I analyze how the arguments of a group of Cucapá for fishing rights in the Colorado Delta have been constrained within these political circumstances. I argue that cultural difference has been leveraged by the Mexican federal government and local NGOs to prevent the redistribution of environmental resources among vulnerable groups such as the Cucapá.     

Customary Management of Indigenous Species—a Maori Perspective

In addressing the issue of customary management of indigenous species, we begin by defining the rights of Maori and the responsibilities of the Crown under Article 2 of the Treaty of Waitangi. We then criticise the status quo by demonstrating what we see as cultural bias in native bird management. This is followed by an outline of the approach we believe is needed to better serve the requirements of the Treaty. We conclude that existing unfair management emphases produce outcomes that are both culturally and ecologically counterproductive.     

Local knowledge of biotic diversity and its conservation in Rural Hausaland, Northern Nigeria

Because biodiversity is debated primarily from western perspectives, the significance of threatened taxa has not been properly assessed in the cultural and ecological contexts of their use. Instead, conservable species tend to be identified by outsiders who are culturally and politically detached from the threatened environments. However, over the last decade or so a growing number of studies document why and how indigenous knowledge and people can become part of development and sustainable conservation. Presented here is a Nigerian example that illustrates how formal conservation efforts are handicapped by their failure to take into account local environmental knowledge. I argue that the potential erosion of biodiversity in Hausaland has been checked by the varied management of cultivated and other lands, and by the use of plants in overlapping contexts—as medicines, foods, and the like.     

From small holes to grand narratives: the impact of taphonomy and sample size on the modernity debate in Australia and New Guinea

Our knowledge of early Australasian societies has significantly expanded in recent decades with more than 220 Pleistocene sites reported from a range of environmental zones and depositional contexts. The uniqueness of this dataset has played an increasingly important role in global debates about the origins and expression of complex behaviour among early modern human populations. Nevertheless, discussions of Pleistocene behaviour and cultural innovation are yet to adequately consider the effects of taphonomy and archaeological sampling on the nature and representativeness of the record. Here, we investigate the effects of preservation and sampling on the archaeological record of Sahul, and explore the implications for understanding early cultural diversity and complexity. We find no evidence to support the view that Pleistocene populations of Sahul lacked cognitive modernity or cultural complexity. Instead, we argue that differences in the nature of early modern human populations across the globe were more likely the consequence of differences in population size and density, interaction and historical contingency.     

Haka Fracas? The Dialectics of Identity in Discussions of a Contemporary Maori Dance1

This paper analyses discussions of the haka (popularly translated as ‘the war dance of the Maori’) in three performative sites in Aotearoa/New Zealand: a national Maori dance competition, touristic ‘cultural experience’ programs in Rotorua, and a secondary school in Wellington. The discussions demonstrate that this dance has come to represent a variety of ‘identifications’ for the speakers. However, while the haka elicits multiple, related and sometimes conflicting identificatory possibilities for Maori‐identified discussants (albeit within a limited range of positions), this is not the case for a group of non‐Maori men reminiscing about their boyhood performances at school sporting events. Through the comparison of discussions of these three performance sites, this paper argues that haka conversations reveal dynamic creativity in discourses of identifications (intra‐indigenous, collective indigenous, and nationalist) of some speakers but not of others.     

Multiple identifications and the dialogical self: urban Maori youngsters and the cultural renaissance

The renaissance of Maori culture and tradition has played a significant role in the political campaigns of New Zealand's indigenous population over the past few decades. At the same time, however, it has brought to light that many Maori youngsters are unable to construct a cultural identity in terms of the discourses of culture and tradition that dominate the political arena. This article analyses the experience of urban Maori youngsters in ceremonial settings ( marae ) by examining the question of how they mediate different representations of their cultural identity within the self. It demonstrates that many young Maori people are engaged in a psychological dialogue between, on the one hand, the classic model for a Maori identity that prescribes them to embrace traditional culture and, on the other hand, their personal identification as outcasts in daily practices of New Zealand society.     

Dietary,Cultural, and Pathogens-Related Selective Pressures Shaped Differential Adaptive Evolution among Native Mexican Populations

Native American genetic ancestry has been remarkably implicated with increased risk of diverse health issues in several Mexican populations, especially in relation to the dramatic changes in environmental, dietary, and cultural settings they have recently undergone. In particular, the effects of these ecological transitions and Westernization of lifestyles have been investigated so far predominantly on Mestizo individuals. Nevertheless, indigenous groups, rather than admixed Mexicans, have plausibly retained the highest proportions of genetic components shaped by natural selection in response to the ancient milieu experienced by Mexican ancestors during their pre-Columbian evolutionary history. These formerly adaptive variants have the potential to represent the genetic determinants of some biological traits that are peculiar to Mexican people, as well as a reservoir of loci with possible biomedical relevance. To test such a hypothesis, we used genome-wide genotype data to infer the unique adaptive evolution of Native Mexican groups selected as reasonable descendants of the main pre-Columbian Mexican civilizations. A combination of haplotype-based and gene-network analyses enabled us to detect genomic signatures ascribable to polygenic adaptive traits plausibly evolved by the main genetic clusters of Mexican indigenous populations to cope with local environmental and/or cultural conditions. Some of these adaptations were found to play a role in modulating the susceptibility/resistance of these groups to certain pathological conditions, thus providing new evidence that diverse selective pressures have contributed to shape the current biological and disease-risk patterns of present-day Native and Mestizo Mexican populations.     

Bacterial Community Composition of Biological Degreasing Systems and Health Risk Assessment for Workers

Biological degreasing system is a new technology based on the degradation capabilities of microorganisms to remove oil, grease, or lubricants from metal parts. No data is available about the potential biological health hazards in such system. Thus, a health risk assessment linked to the bacterial populations present in this new degreasing technology is, therefore, necessary for workers. We performed both cultural and molecular approaches in several biological degreasing systems for various industrial contexts to investigate the composition and dynamics of bacterial populations. These biological degreasing systems did not work with the original bacterial populations. Indeed, they were colonized by a defined and restricted group of bacteria. This group replaced the indigenous bacterial populations known for degrading complex substrates. Klebsiella pneumoniae, Klebsiella oxytoca, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Pantoea agglomerans were important members of the microflora found in most of the biological degreasing systems. These bacteria might represent a potential health hazard for workers.     

Assessing the Potential of Indigenous-Run Demographic/Health Surveys: the 2005 Shuar Survey,Ecuador

Despite improved national censuses and “micro-demographic” studies, demographic processes and health conditions among indigenous populations in Amazonia and elsewhere in lowland Latin America are not well understood. A new source of demographic and health data has emerged in the past decade, namely meso-scale surveys initiated and administered by indigenous organizations. These surveys offer the potential for filling information gaps, shedding light on culturally specific factors that shape demographic processes and health, and empowering indigenous organizations with data that could inform health initiatives. This article assesses the indigenous-run survey “2005 Health Analysis of the Shuar and Achuar Nations” of eastern Ecuador in which the authors were involved, which reached 1,943 households in 257 communities in Morona-Santiago Province. We present findings on fertility, migration, sanitation, and health, and assess the strengths and weaknesses of the survey. We argue that despite flaws in the survey design and implementation, this survey revealed important linkages among fertility, migration, and health. Such surveys have the potential to provide much needed detail, representativeness, and cultural specificity that macro and micro data sources cannot provide. We conclude with recommendations to improve surveys of this type.     

Ecological Aging: The Settings Approach in Aged Living and Care Accommodation

As the proportion of older people increases within populations, financial demands related to the cost of health service delivery threaten global stability. This population trend challenges the traditional approach to health service delivery to older populations. This article presents the Australian context as a case study to argue that the application of a health promoting settings approach to aged care may lead to improved well-being for older people to the extent that the periods of chronic morbidity often associated with aging can be compressed into an ever shorter period of time. Promoting an ecological perspective to aged care suggests that there is no need to manage older people in isolation, as is common practice, but as integral to the way society lives, works, and plays. The article maps parallels between characteristics of health promoting settings such as Health Promoting Schools and the aged living and care industry, arguing that the setting encompassing services for the elderly is a prime location for the establishment of a new health promotion setting. Supporting life opportunities for our aged is central to such an approach. More broadly, an ecological approach orients us toward the connection between environment and health, and encourages increased attention and action within the aged living and care sector on reducing environmental impacts of this growing population. As such, the application of this approach to the aged living and care sector has the potential to reduce the threat that a dependant older population has on global sustainability.     

Population and prehistory I: Food-dependent population growth in constant environments

We present a demographic model that describes the feedbacks between food supply, human mortality and fertility rates, and labor availability in expanding populations, where arable land area is not limiting. This model provides a quantitative framework to describe how environment, technology, and culture interact to influence the fates of preindustrial agricultural populations. We present equilibrium conditions and derive approximations for the equilibrium population growth rate, food availability, and other food-dependent measures of population well-being. We examine how the approximations respond to environmental changes and to human choices, and find that the impact of environmental quality depends upon whether it manifests through agricultural yield or maximum (food-independent) survival rates. Human choices can complement or offset environmental effects: greater labor investments increase both population growth and well-being, and therefore can counteract lower agricultural yield, while fertility control decreases the growth rate but can increase or decrease well-being. Finally we establish equilibrium stability criteria, and argue that the potential for loss of local stability at low population growth rates could have important consequences for populations that suffer significant environmental or demographic shocks.     

Development of a Tool to Facilitate Participation of Maori in the Management of Stream and River Health

A cultural health index (CHI) for streams was developed in a program of collaborative research involving members of Ngai Tahu (an iwi [tribe] within the South Island of New Zealand) and ecologists at Otago University. The aim was to provide a tool for effective participation of Maori in resource management decisions. Five cultural values are of central importance to the nature of the CHI: mauri (spiritual life force), mahinga kai (traditional resource harvesting), kaitiakitanga (guardianship obligation), ki uta ki tai (mountains-to-the-sea holistic philosophy), and wai taonga waters that are treasured). The CHI has three components. Forty-six stream sites in two culturally important river catchments were first classified according to whether there is a traditional association with Maori. The second component assessed the historical and contemporary mahinga kai status of the site, including questions of legal and physical access. The third component was a Cultural Stream Health Measure (CSHM) that encapsulates indicators of catchment, riparian, and instream condition in a manner that is consistent with Maori values. The CSHM was found to be significantly correlated with western measures of stream health commonly used in New Zealand (Macroinvertebrate Community Index, Stream Health Monitoring and Assessment Kit), and performed at least as well in encapsulating the relationship between land development and stream health. We describe a multistep process by which other indigenous people can develop a cultural ecosystem health measure, and then use the tool to ensure a substantial role in decision making with the agency in charge.     

Whakapapa, genealogy and genetics

This paper provides part of an analysis of the use of the Maori term whakapapa in a study designed to test the compatibility and commensurability of views of members of the indigenous culture of New Zealand with other views of genetic technologies extant in the country. It is concerned with the narrow sense of whakapapa as denoting biological ancestry, leaving the wider sense of whakapapa as denoting cultural identity for discussion elsewhere. The phenomenon of genetic curiosity is employed to facilitate this comparison. Four levels of curiosity are identified, in the Maori data, which penetrate more or less deeply into the psyche of individuals, affecting their health and wellbeing. These phenomena are compared with non-Maori experiences and considerable commonalities are discovered together with a point of marked difference. The results raise important questions for the ethical application of genetic technologies.     

Indigenous Ecological Knowledge as Situated Practices: Understanding Fishers' Knowledge in the Western Solomon Islands

ABSTRACT   In this article, we draw on research among fisherfolk of Roviana Lagoon, Solomon Islands, to examine certain epistemological assumptions of the "indigenous knowledge" concept. We describe how approaches to knowledge in Roviana differ from prevailing models of knowledge that distinguish between cognitive aspects and other modalities of knowing. For many Roviana fishers, ecological knowledge is not analytically separated from the changing contexts of everyday activities such as navigating and fishing. Inspired by Roviana epistemologies, we argue that a practice-oriented approach provides a more sympathetic and informative theoretical framework for understanding knowledge and its role in contemporary marine-resource conservation efforts. The theoretical and methodological implications of the perspective are illustrated with examples from an ongoing marine conservation project in the western Solomon Islands that integrates indigenous knowledge, remote-sensing techniques, and Geographic Information System (GIS) technologies.     

Ornaments Reveal Resistance of North European Cultures to the Spread of Farming

The transition to farming is the process by which human groups switched from hunting and gathering wild resources to food production. Understanding how and to what extent the spreading of farming communities from the Near East had an impact on indigenous foraging populations in Europe has been the subject of lively debates for decades. Ethnographic and archaeological studies have shown that population replacement and admixture, trade, and long distance diffusion of cultural traits lead to detectable changes in symbolic codes expressed by associations of ornaments on the human body. Here we use personal ornaments to document changes in cultural geography during the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition. We submitted a binary matrix of 224 bead-types found at 212 European Mesolithic and 222 Early Neolithic stratigraphic units to a series of spatial and multivariate analyses. Our results reveal consistent diachronic and geographical trends in the use of personal ornaments during the Neolithisation. Adoption of novel bead-types combined with selective appropriation of old attires by incoming farmers is identified in Southern and Central Europe while cultural resistance leading to the nearly exclusive persistence of indigenous personal ornaments characterizes Northern Europe. We argue that this pattern reflects two distinct cultural trajectories with different potential for gene flow.     

Protecting Indigenous Values in Water Management: A Challenge to Conventional Environmental Flow Assessments

Although environmental flow assessments and allocations have been practiced in Australia for nearly 20 years, to date they have not effectively incorporated indigenous values. In many cases, even though indigenous people rely substantially on aquatic resources, environmental flows have been assumed to be an acceptable surrogate for the protection of indigenous interests. This paper argues that the need to adapt flow assessments to account for linkages and dependencies between people and rivers is equally applicable to developed world indigenous contexts such as Australia as it is to developing countries where there has been some attempt to address indigenous or subsistence water requirements. We propose three challenges to conventional environmental flow assessments that, if met, will improve the ability of water resource planning to address indigenous interests. The first challenge is to recognize that in an indigenous context a different suite of species may be considered important when compared to those valued by other stakeholders. Although conservation status or rarity may be important, it is common and widespread species that make substantial contributions to indigenous household incomes through customary use. The second challenge is to accommodate a different set of management objectives in environmental flow allocation. Environmental flows will need to meet the requirement of hunting and fishing activities at rates that are socially and economically sustainable. The third and arguably most theoretically challenging task is for environmental flow assessments to take into account indigenous worldviews and the quality of people–place relationships that are significant in indigenous cultures. Meeting these three challenges to environmental flow assessment will assist water management agencies and other practitioners to protect indigenous interests as water allocation decisions are made.     

The importance of considering human well-being to understand social preferences of ecosystem services

Evaluations about social preferences for ecosystem services do not always include human well-being. Using a case study in South-Central Chile, we showed how the human well-being approach might reveal social preferences on ecosystem services. We used a socio-cultural approach to compare social preferences for provisioning, regulating, and cultural services and the links people establish to human well-being. From an online questionnaire, we collected 214 responses, balanced in gender (49/51 % men/women, respectively), diverse in age (18 to 62 years), but with 68 % under 30 years. Water for human consumption and agriculture, food, and native forest products were the most preferred provisioning services (40, 28, and 21 %, respectively). In contrast, products from tree plantations were considered the lowest ones. Pollution control (40 %) and water provision during summer (18 %) were the preferred regulating services, while biodiversity conservation (25 %) and environmental education (22 %) were primarily selected cultural ones. We found a clear preference pattern for provisioning services but not for regulating and cultural services. Even though people linked multiple ES to human well-being, some links’ patterns mirrored preferences for provisioning services but not for regulating and cultural services. However, although cultural services did not show a clear preference pattern, people perceived their importance by linking them to various benefits. Understanding social preferences of ES based on their links with human well-being helps to address their relevance and potential trade-offs for land planning and management decision-making and convert the ES concept into decision-making instruments.