Dissertation Research: Risk and Diversification in a Mixed Foraging and Agropastoral Market Economy in Southwestern Madagascar

社会科学家通常分类的主要生存模式，如觅食，农业，畜牧业，小制造业等，本论文的研究项目由文化人类学的学生在北卡罗来纳州大学将研究如何狩猎采集马达加斯加满足他们的生存和消费神的需求，通过各种各样的经济和生态决策的社区的经济生活。 虽然社会的所有成员都在一定程度上狩猎和采集，但许多家庭还保持着玉米和块茎种植、牛和山羊放牧、捕鱼以及制造供销售的席子和篮子等多种多样的组合。在这一系列可能性中，一个特定的家庭面临着各种选择，在生计和现金之间，在不同环境区的活动之间，立即和延迟返回之间，男人、女人和儿童的劳动力之间，以及在不同的市场之间。 该项目将研究一系列家庭的经济活动和决定，以了解如何利用基本的技术工具箱管理风险，在不可预测的环境中生存。 了解这样一个多样化经济中的战略对于了解经济和文化变化的一般过程至关重要，无论这些变化是发生在农业的起源，还是发生在小规模农村人口向全球市场经济的持续过渡中。

Social scientists ordinarily classify the economic life of communities by a dominant mode of subsistence, such as foraging, agriculture, pastoralism, petty manufacture, etc. This dissertation research project by a cultural anthropology student at the University of North Carolina will study how hunter-gatherers of Madagascar meet their needs for subsistence and consumer gods thorough a diverse array of economic and ecological decisions. While all the members of the society hunt and gather to some extent, many households also maintain a diverse portfolio of maize and tuber cultivation, cattle and goat herding, fishing and manufacturing of mats and baskets for sale. Within this suite of possibilities a particular household is faced with options, between subsistence and cash, activities in different environmental zones, immediate and delayed returns, men, women and children's labor, and among diverse markets. This project will study the economic activities and decisions of a set of households in order to understand how risk is managed to survive in an unpredictable environment with a rudimentary technological tool kit. Understanding strategies within such a diverse economy is vital for understanding the general processes of economic and cultural change, whether they occur at the origins of agriculture or in the ongoing transition of small, rural populations into the global market economy.