Implications of Tenure Insecurity for Aboriginal Land Use in Canada
David C. Natcher, Clifford G. Hickey, Mark Nelson, and Susan Davis
In Canada, Aboriginal peoples are succeeding at regaining portions of their traditional land base. Accomplished through the signing of historic treaties and the negotiation of comprehensive land claims agreements, nearly seven percent of Canada’s entire land base is now under the administrative authority of Aboriginal governments. Notwithstanding these accomplishments, it remains unclear whether such territorial gains coincide with a heightened sense of tenure security. Together with the Little Red River Cree Nation of Alberta and the Little Salmon/Carmacks First Nation of the Yukon Territory, we set out to learn how First Nation members perceive their access to traditional lands to be changing over time and by generation. Findings indicate that despite various tenure reforms, First Nation members remain concerned that their traditional territories are susceptible to the interests of others. Given that perceptions of tenure security informs the basis by which people exploit resources, these conditions could potentially intensify into conflict with those who are seen as benefiting at the expense of First Nation members and propagate behaviors yielding higher short-term benefits leading to the over-exploitation of natural resources. While grounded in two Canadian case studies, the findings of this research have broad implications for other countries that are using treaties and other modern forms of agreement making to restructure land tenure arrangements with Aboriginal peoples.
Key words: Aboriginal, Canada, tenure security, resource use, conflict
The Politics of Patronage and Live Reef Fish Trade Regulation in Palawan, Philippines
Michael Fabinyi
Recent critiques of decentralized approaches to fisheries management have focused on problems related to poor governance. This paper aims to extend such critiques by considering in greater depth local perceptions of governance in the Philippines. Specifically, it deals with a set of regulations addressing the live reef fish trade in the Calamianes Islands. The paper shows how the entire process of implementing a closed season, the fishers’ critique, and the subsequent overturning of these regulations exposes the way personalized politics is understood and practiced within Philippine society. Firstly, a background about the live reef fish trade is provided, and how the regulations were proposed and developed is described. The majority of the paper then analyses local opposition to the regulations in terms of local understandings of politics. The paper argues that when negative sentiments towards governance and governments are widespread among local residents, this may hinder successful co-management.
Key words: live reef fish trade, patron-client relationship, Philippines, governance, fisheries management, Palawan
Hustling and Housing: Drug Users’ Strategies to Obtain Shelter and Income in Hartford, Connecticut
Julia Dickson-Gómez, Mark Convey, Helena Hilario, Margaret R. Weeks, and A. Michelle Corbett
Research has documented illicit drug users’ participation in the informal and drug economies as a result of barriers in obtaining legitimate sources of work and income. Less research has explored ways drug users utilize income from various sources to obtain shelter and meet other basic needs. This paper draws on longitudinal qualitative interviews that were conducted with 65 active cocaine or heroin users in various housed or homeless statuses to explore participants’ sources of income, work experiences, and strategies to secure housing and other basic needs. Results indicate that most participants did not receive cash welfare benefits, and few had any form of employment. Further, those who received federal housing subsidies often had no income to pay their part of the rent or other necessities. Participants reported engaging in a number of informal, illegal, and bartering relationships with drug using and non-drug using residents in order to obtain shelter and income. Insufficient social welfare and employment opportunities have created a context of scarcity in which drug using and non-drug using residents depend on each other to obtain shelter and other needs in ways prohibited by federal welfare and housing policies. A number of policy changes, including increasing access to and benefits levels of welfare and housing subsidies, employment programs for ex-offenders and tax incentives to increase employment opportunities, may increase drug users’ housing stability.
Key words: drug use, informal economy, housing, welfare reform
Feral Hogs: Invasive Species or Nature’s Bounty?
Priscilla Weeks and Jane Packard
Invasive species have been identified as an international conservation crisis. Federal land managers have been mandated to control invasive species on their lands and to restore native species. Such action can have consequences for local communities that have incorporated the non-native species into their culture and economy. Previously managed by local stockmen as free-ranging livestock, feral hogs are now perceived by conservation professionals and advocates as an invasive species that threatens native plants and animals. We use the public scoping process associated with a proposed feral hog (Sus scrofa) management plan for a National Park Service managed biological preserve to examine how the scientific conceptualization of hogs as an invasive species undermines traditional claims to natural resources. We then offer some potential models of how elements associated with traditional stockmen culture might augment scientific management.
Key words: conservation, biodiversity, rural communities, national park, swine, pig, feral hog, invasive species, non-native, alien
Institutions, Agency, and Illness in the Making of Tourette Syndrome
Andrew Buckser
Medical anthropology has increasingly emphasized the importance of agency in the experience of illness. As sick people rethink and contest social constructions of their symptoms, they influence both the course of their own illnesses and the larger cultural models within which they exist. By shaping the ability of people to exercise such agency, institutions play a powerful role in the making of illness. This paper explores this process in the neurological disorder Tourette Syndrome, based on fieldwork among adults with Tourette in Indiana. Institutional constraints on time, space, and movement can profoundly affect the ability of individuals with Tourette to manage perceptions of their symptoms. As a result, different institutional settings can produce radically different experiences of the disease. We can improve our understanding of the making of illness by incorporating such institutional structures into our models. In addition, understanding the interactions among institutions, agency, and illness suggests implications for more accommodating and humane institutional design.
Key words: institutions, illness; agency, Tourette syndrome, schools
Swap Meets and Socioeconomic Alternatives for Mexican Immigrants: The Case of the San Joaquin Valley
Magdalena Barros Nock
Swap meets have a long tradition in California’s San Joaquin Valley. These are markets of different sizes and characteristics that have changed and adapted to demographic changes in the Valley. This article has two interrelated objectives. The first is to describe swap meets’ main characteristics and how they have changed, paying special attention to changes introduced by Mexican vendors and consumers. The second is to discuss the different strategies implemented by men and women of Mexican origin in order to open a business at the swap meets. This article is based on qualitative data gathered during four months of field work in southern Central Valley. Seventeen swap meets were studied in Kern, Tulare, Kings and southern Fresno Counties.
Key words: swap meets, international migration, Mexican entrepreneurs, California
A Case for Certified Interpreters for Participants in the Canada/Mexico Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program
Avis Mysyk, Margaret England, and Juan Arturo Avila Gallegos
The rapid growth of Ontario’s greenhouse vegetable industry is largely due to a guaranteed supply of Mexicans who participate in the Canada/Mexico Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (C/MSAWP). Agriculture is a dangerous occupation and, although Mexican farm workers have the right to health care while they are in Canada, they lack access to certified interpretation services in the province’s hospital and clinics. This paper draws on the results of a pilot study of 30 Mexican farm workers in southwestern Ontario to demonstrate their need for such services, not only for physical illnesses and injuries sustained on the job, but for the culturally constructed illness of nervios (nerves). It examines the barriers in access to certified interpreters, namely, the Canada Health Act and the differing agendas of primary and secondary stakeholders in the C/MSAWP. Finally, it addresses the wider economic, political, health, and social benefits of providing such services to Mexican farm workers within the context of the C/MSAWP in Ontario and, by extension, in other provinces that participate in the program.
Key words: greenhouse vegetable industry, Ontario, Canada, Mexican farm workers, nervios, certified interpreters
The Effects of Problem Drinking and Sexual Risk Among Mexican Migrant Workers on Their Community of Origin
Michael R. Duke and Francisco J. Gómez Carpinteiro
Although the financial remittances sent by male Mexican migrant workers residing in the United States can result in higher standards of living for their families and home communities, out-migration may lead to increased migrant problem drinking and sexual risk behaviors, which may in turn impact these same communities of origin. Based on semi-structured interviewing (n=60) and participant observation in a migrant sending community in central Mexico and a receiving community in the Northeastern United States, this paper explores the effects of out-migration on HIV risk and problem drinking among United States-based migrants from a small agricultural community in the Mexican state of Puebla. We argue that problem drinking and risky sexual behaviors among these migrant workers have had significant consequences for their home community in terms of diminished remittances, the introduction of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, and loss of husbands or kinsmen to automobile accidents. Moreover, although rumor and gossip between the two communities serve as a form of social control, they may also contribute to increased problem drinking and sexual risk.
Key words: migration, problem drinking, HIV risk, farm workers, community consequences, Mexico
Modulation of Drug Use in Southern Farming Communities: Social Origins of Poly-use
Keith V. Bletzer
Popular images of users who are overly fond of a “drug of choice” are belied by the experience of those who seek or become aware of varied effects from multiple forms of use. Based on fieldwork and ethnographic interviews, this article discusses poly-use by men and women who sequentially use new lifetime drugs; temporarily replace drugs over seasonal agricultural cycles that inhibit a schedule of regular use; pace use by days of the week; and/or mix drugs prior to and/or during a drug session. User narratives from farming communities of the southern United States highlight a poly-use discourse that accentuates knowledge of bodily effects that move beyond that of a mono-drug high. This individualization of self-experience is compelled by seasonal cycles of irregular and uncertain employment, residential dislocation, and strenuous physical labor, which often result in voluntary discontinuation, adjusted practices, and new routes of administration. For some, periodic incarceration results in forced cessation. This range of variability in patterns of using drugs and consuming alcohol reflects constrained and contained responses to demands on physical capacity. These responses reflect creative poly-use that iteratively builds toward a lifetime repertoire that buffers the hardships of demanding labor routines.
Key words: drug and alcohol use, social origins of poly-use, agricultural labor, southern United States
Binational Substance Abuse Research and Internal Review Boards: Human Subject Risks and Suggestions for Protections
Victor García
Drug use research that involves transnational populations in their worksite nations and in their countries of origin requires special consideration for human subjects. These populations are exposed to similar, if not greater, research related risks than other vulnerable research subjects. If they are to be protected adequately, Internal Review Boards (IRBs) need to become familiar with transnational populations and the possible risks that their members face when participating in research that targets their drug use behaviors and practices. Addressed in this article are a number of challenges that IRBs in United States universities and research institutes encounter in assuring protections against possible research risks. Specific areas of concern are: the dearth of binational IRB reviews, IRB inexperience with transnational populations, mandatory written consent, limited research ethics training for researchers, the absence of a vulnerable population research advisory board, and the need for measures in case of a breach of confidentiality. The discourse of each one of these problem areas includes a recommendation for rectifying it. The article ends with five suggested measures that IRBs should consider in protecting transnational migrants from research related risks in the United States and in their homeland. The discussion of human subject problems and of the measures introduced to alleviate them are based on the author’s experiences with preparing human subjects protocols for his ethnographic substance abuse research in both the United States and Mexico.
Key words: Binational research, transnational populations, human subjects, research risks, internal review boards, research protections
