| 2009 — 2011 |
Gurven, Michael [⬀]
Von Rueden, Christopher |
N/AActivity Code Description:
No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Dissertation Research: the Determinants and Outcomes of Male Social Status in a Rapidly Acculturating Amazonian Society @ University of California-Santa Barbara
University of California, Santa Barbara graduate student, Christopher von Rueden, with the guidance of Dr. Michael Gurven, will undertake research on male social hierarchy in a small-scale Amazonian society. While social status differentials are common to all human societies, the origin of human status differentials remains unclear. What traits enable individuals to achieve higher status in a given culture, and what potential benefits motivate their status-seeking? Existing ethnographies of male status tend to explore the link between only one particular trait and social status, or lack a longitudinal design to properly assess causal relationships. Filling this knowledge gap in fast-disappearing small-scale societies is critical, in part because these societies provide unique insight into the ancestral socio-ecologies in which human status-seeking behavior originated.
The researcher will conduct 12 months of fieldwork among the Tsimane forager-horticulturalists of the Bolivian Amazon. Photo-ranking, interviews, medical exams, and collective action experiments will be used to compare several measures of social status (e.g. small-group leadership and community-wide influence), several determinants of status (e.g. age, hunting skill, personality, income, and number of close kin), and several outcomes of status acquisition (e.g. fertility and health). Data gathered in previous field seasons will be used to evaluate how investments in particular traits may or may not have led to subsequent status acquisition. Research will extend across four Tsimane villages, which differ in size and level of acculturation, such as access to education and material wealth.
This study represents one of the only quantitative analyses of social status to consider different determinants of status simultaneously and will be among the first to evaluate the health outcomes of social status in a non-industrial, small-scale society. The cross-village research design will provide a unique opportunity to investigate how socio-economic changes within a society shape the determinants and outcomes of social hierarchies. Funding this research also supports the education of a social scientist.
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