How Do Poor, Remote Rural Places Get Child Care Centers?: Patriarchy, Out-migration, and Political Opportunities in the Ecuadorian Amazon
Thomas Rudel, Diane Bates, and Susan Golbeck
Male out-migration from poor, rural areas of the South has often been conceptualized as a process of social erosion in which rural communities lose potential leaders to urban areas and in so doing become less able to assert their interests in larger political arenas. We argue that the departure of middle-aged, labor migrating men from these communities represents a political opportunity for the middle-aged women who remain behind in the village to care for children. We illustrate this argument through a case study of the changing patterns of female political activism after male out-migration from a small community in the Ecuadorian Amazon. The case study lends credence to the political opportunity thesis. The policy implications of this finding are briefly explored.
Key words: gender, Latin America, child care, migration, politics
“We Sacrifice and Eat Less”: The Structural Complexities of Microfinance Participation
John A. Brett
Having borrowed money from a microfinance organization to start a small business, many women in El Alto, Bolivia are unable to generate sufficient income to repay their loans and so must draw upon household resources. Working from the women’s experience and words, this article explores the range of factors that condition and constrain their success as entrepreneurs. The central theme is that while providing the poor access to credit is currently very popular in development circles, the social and structural context within which some women operate so strongly constrains their productive activity that they realize a net income loss at the household level instead of the promised benefits of entrepreneurship. This paper explores the social and structural realities in which women seek out and accept debt beyond their capacity to repay from the proceeds of their business enterprise. By examining some of the “hidden costs” of microfinance participation, this paper argues for a shift from evaluation on outcomes at the institutional level to outcomes at the household level to identify the forces and factors that condition women’s success as micro-entrepreneurs. While there has been much discussion on the benefits of microcredit lending and increasing critique of it on both ideological and substantive grounds, there have been few ethnographically informed studies on consequences to users.
Key words: microcredit, microfinance, Bolivia, women, ethnography
Biodiversity Conservation and the Quality of Life of Indigenous People in the Bolivian Chaco
Evelio Arambiza and Michael Painter
The appropriate relationship between efforts to conserve biological diversity and promote development initiatives that contribute to improving the quality of life of indigenous people has proven contentious, and discussions often seemed more oriented toward staking out positions than defining areas of shared interest upon which alliances that could shape rural land use might be constructed. The Capitanía de Alto y Bajo Isoso, the indigenous organization representing the interests of the Guaraní people in the Isoso region of Bolivia’s Chaco, and the Wildlife Conservation Society, a US-based conservation organization, have developed a partnership over the course of more than 15 years, which has made important contributions to conserving biological diversity and supporting the initiatives of indigenous people to improve their quality of life. This article discusses what have been crucial elements in building and maintaining the partnership, and suggests lessons that might be applied in other settings
Key words: conservation, sustainable development, indigenous people, protected areas, land tenure and land rights
The Transnational State and Empire: U.S. Certification in the Mexican Mango and Persian Lime Industries
Robert R. Alvarez
The US-Mexico Mango and Lime export industries illustrate the impact of US food certification on rural Mexican society and in the structure of production, packing, and transport of export fruit for the US Market. US Certification is a hemispheric process that does not take regional or local diversity in production and distribution into account. Mango producers and distributors throughout the Republic have incorporated the USDA and FDA protocol, while in Lime production areas of Veracruz, certification has been met with fear, misunderstanding and staunch resistance. This article outlines the complex change that has occurred in the Mango export system over the last 15 years and compares this with the recent introduction of US certification for limes that threatens a complex regional system of distribution and buying. In addition to the challenge posed to Mexican sovereignty, these cases illustrate unintended consequences of NAFTA and the increased stratification of Mexican Agriculture. I argue that US imperatives need be viewed in a larger pattern of transnational and systemic control that suggests new forms of post-colonialism.
Key words: Mexican agriculture, food safety, NAFTA, transnational state
Doing Bioethics: Challenges for Anthropology
Margaret Everett
Anthropological participation in bioethics, especially in the area of policy-making, has been limited for a number of reasons. This paper explores the anthropological critique of bioethics and considers reasons why anthropologists are not more visible in bioethics debates. Reflections on the author’s own participation on two ethics boards illustrate both the potential contributions of the anthropological perspective to bioethics and the challenges for a more effective engagement.
Key words: bioethics, research, policy-making
Latino Migrant Farmworkers in Lowcountry South Carolina: A Demographic Profile and an Examination of Pesticide Risk Perception and Protection in Two Pilot Case Studies
Angela Halfacre-Hitchcock, Deborah McCarthy,
Tracy Burkett, and Alicia Carvajal
Migrant and seasonal farmworkers face greater exposure to chemicals applied during the growing, harvesting, transporting, and processing of food than other consumers of produce in the United States since they work directly with agricultural toxins and report difficulty accessing health care and other basic needs. Little is known regarding the life opportunities and challenges faced by the contemporary community of migrant farmworkers in the geographic region of lowcountry South Carolina. This paper, which analyzes two interlocking pilot studies, makes a nascent attempt to fill this knowledge gap by presenting descriptive data that summarizes the unique circumstances faced by lowcountry migrant farmworkers due to cultural, language, transportation, education, healthcare, income, and other demographic characteristics. Our findings also support existing evidence that indicates, first, that migrant farmworkers are not receiving adequate pesticide safety training and, second, that even when they do receive training these programs do not necessarily increase protective measures and behaviors. Finally, we conclude by suggesting that future research be conducted to investigate whether the unique combination of socioeconomic and cultural characteristics of migrant farmworkers may be contributing to the lack of effectiveness of current pesticide training and education programs.
Key words: Latino migrant labor, farmworker health, pesticide safety, South Carolina, risk perception
What is the “Drug User Community”?: Implications for Public Health
Merill Singer
Through an exploration of a group that is beginning to be labeled in the public health and drug research literature “the drug user community,” this paper engages the challenges of achieving a shared research definition of the oft used term “community.” While this term has been a central concept in public health since the international Alma Alta conference of 1978, it remains “slippery” and hard to pin down, however useful. While drug users commonly are disparaged as a threat to community—indeed, the very embodiment of such threats, as a result of the AIDS epidemic, postmodernism, and the harm reduction movement—illicit drug users are now increasingly being accorded community status among drug interventionists and researchers alike. This paper examines the development of this trend, the community (and anti-community) features of drug users based on research in Hartford, CT, and the public health implications of conceiving (or failing to conceive) of drug users in this way.
Key words: community, drug users, drug use criminality, public health, harm reduction
Incorporating Fishermen’s Local Knowledge and Behavior into Geographical Information Systems (GIS) for Designing Marine Protected Areas
in Oceania
Shankar Aswani and Matthew Lauer
Drawing on our experience in establishing marine protected areas (MPAs) in the Roviana and Vonavona Lagoons, New Georgia, Solomon Islands, this paper shows how a geographical information system (GIS) database can be used to incorporate socio-spatial information, such as indigenous knowledge and artisanal fishing data, along with biophysical and other information to assist in MPA design. We argue that converting peoples’ knowledge and socioecological behavior into geo-spatial data allows researchers to formulate hypotheses regarding human responses to inter- and intra-habitat variability, along with other marine ecological processes, and help in the designing and implementation of resource management strategies in a cost-effective and participatory way, bridging the gap between indigenous and Western cognitions of seascapes. More generally, we show the significance of combining spatial tools, anthropological fieldwork, and social and natural science methods for studying artisanal fisheries with the goal of aiding the design of marine protected areas.
Key words: Geographical Information Systems (GIS), indigenous ecological knowledge, fishing, community-based marine protected areas (CBMPAs), Solomon Islands, Oceania
Testing an Ethnographic Decision Tree Model on a National Sample: Recycling Beverage Cans
Gery W. Ryan and H. Russell Bernard
We report here on an ethnographic model of a decision that Americans make regularly: to recycle beverage cans or not. The model was derived from 21 ethnographic interviews and 70 structured interviews in Florida and North Dakota. Ethnographic decision models are not new, but we show here that these models can be tested for both internal and external validity. We test internal validity by comparing the model’s predictions systematically to what people say about their own behavior. We test external validity by comparing the predictions of the ethnographic model to those of a representative sample of 386 people across the United States. The original model accounts for about 90% of the reported behaviors, while the national model predicts about 85% of the reported behaviors.
Key words: decision modeling, recycling behavior, ethnographic methods
