Resources and Life Course Management Among Rural Pastoralists

该项目支持两位人类学家研究博茨瓦纳的牧民如何思考和管理他们的“生命历程”，即他们的家庭规模、人口构成和财富。在一个牛是主要财富形式的社会里，人们关注的是男性的生育决定，而亲属关系制度认为后代主要是女性。研究人员将结合深度访谈、参与者观察、时间分配研究和小规模调查等方法，了解人们如何管理他们的收入、财富和家庭关系，以达到他们想要的安全感和幸福感。需要检验的具体假设来自进化论。这项研究很重要，因为我们必须了解男性的生育目标和战略，以便管理人口增长。像这样的研究为理论发展提供了案例材料，使学者能够预测旨在限制人口增长的政策的影响。

This project supports two anthropologists studying how pastoralists in Botswana think about and manage their "life course", meaning their family size, demographic composition, and wealth. The focus is on men's reproductive decisions in a society where cattle is the main form of wealth and the kinship system reckons descent primarily in the female line. Using a combination of methods including in-depth interviews, participant-observation, time-allocation studies and small-scale surveys, the researchers will learn how people manage their income, wealth, and family ties in order to attain their desired level of security and well being. Specific hypotheses to be tested are drawn from evolutionary theory. This research is important because we must understand men's reproductive goals and strategies in order to manage the growth of population. Studies like this one provide case material for theory development to allow scholars to predict the impact of policies designed to limit population growth.