Cross Cultural Study of Demographic Processes in Maya and Pume Transitional Subsistence Economies

Suny At Stony Brook, Stony Brook NY

Investigators

Abstract

Most of the world's subsistence populations, hunter-gatherers and agriculturalists, are becoming incorporated into the labor-market economy, with unexpected effects on fertility. Previous research among the Maya suggests that economic developments augment children's economic value and raise parental fertility. When child mortality is low, as it is among the Maya of Mexico and Guatemala, this leads to rapid population growth. This trend is not evident in national census data and raises the question of whether fertility processes through the transition to modernization are far more variable than previously thought. This research seeks to broaden our understanding of how aggregate and individual data give different views of current demographic processes, and the potential demographic effects that development has on nonindustrialized populations. The advantage of small-scale population studies is that the methodology allows more direct observation of the systematic interactions and complex pathways through which economic development affects fertility and mortality. This research initiates ethnographic study in several Venezuelan Pume foraging and agricultural communities to address the interaction between economic development and demographic processes and compare the results to results from prior research among the Maya. Fieldwork involves living with the Pume for several months each year during the funding period to collect economic, census and reproductive history data in several savanna and river villages. Data collection and subsequent analyses will focus on identifying variation in subsistence, sedentarization, education, availability of market foods, health care and proximity to transportation routes, and how these economic markers vary with the value of children's labor, child mortality and fertility. The Pume are an ideal study population for comparative analyses because 1) the savanna and river groups express a continuum of economic strategies and demographic situations in the same general environment, and because 2) the Pume are entering the national economy through participation in wage labor rather than agricultural intensification, as are the Maya. Comparing the Maya demographic response to economic change with the contrasting Pume communities will identify additional demographic responses to alterations in nutrition, labor, and economic opportunity. Broader Impacts: The new knowledge from this project will be of interest to population planners and service providers concerned with developing regions. In addition to the value of this research to development programs and policy making, the project will initiate a program in Pume Cultural Survival, promotes international involvement of students and scholars from Argentina, Venezuela and the U.S, and provides an opportunity for students to participate in foreign study and actively pursue their own advanced research.