Doctoral Dissertation Research: Culture, Change & Chronic Stress in Lowland Bolivia

University Of Florida, Gainesville FL

Investigators

Abstract

University of Florida doctoral candidate, Alan Schultz, supervised by Dr. Clarence Gravlee, will undertake research on the relationship between stress and socio-cultural change. The research will be carried out among a group of foraging-farmers, the Tsimane' of lowland Bolivia, who are at an early stage of exposure to markets and non-traditional cultures. The researcher will try to solve the puzzle of why Tsimane' have some of the lowest known rates of short-term stress biomarkers and related adverse health outcomes despite two decades of increasing market exposure, which is usually associated with increased stress and worsening health. The study will take up these topics using a variety of social science methods, including long-term participant observation focused on local experiences and interpretations of market exposure and social stratification. Key points of focus are the psychosocial stress pathway and culture's role in shifts of the balance between stressors and resistive resources. Structured ethnography will be used to isolate cultural models of social status, social relations and material lifestyle. The project culminates in an epidemiologic survey that tests individual beliefs and behavior against shared ideals linking these to the stress process and outcomes such as blood pressure and a retrospective stress biomarker, hair cortisol. The project also includes an innovative investigation of the impact of local ontology on the effects of market integration and an examination of the impacts of the local research economy that has resulted from the fact that as one of the world's last relatively isolated populations, the Tsimane' have hosted researchers for decades. The research is innovative because it links culture and meaning to individual biological and health outcomes in a population that has so far remained resistant to chronic stress and related poor health. More generally, isolation of the roles that culture and meaning have played in limiting chronic stress during market exposure will suggest alternative areas of inquiry on chronic stress in other populations. Supporting the research also supports the education of a graduate student.