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

世界上大多数自给自足的人口，狩猎采集者和农学家，正在融入劳动力市场经济，这对生育率产生了意想不到的影响。玛雅人之前的研究表明，经济发展增加了儿童的经济价值，提高了父母的生育率。当儿童死亡率较低时，就像墨西哥和危地马拉的玛雅人一样，这会导致人口快速增长。这一趋势在全国人口普查数据中并不明显，并提出了一个问题，即通过向现代化过渡的生育过程是否比以前认为的更加多变。这项研究试图扩大我们的理解，了解总体数据和个人数据如何对当前的人口统计过程提供不同的观点，以及发展对非工业化人口的潜在人口影响。小规模人口研究的优势在于，这种方法可以更直接地观察经济发展影响生育率和死亡率的系统相互作用和复杂途径。这项研究在委内瑞拉几个Pume觅食和农业社区启动了人种学研究，以解决经济发展和人口过程之间的相互作用，并将结果与先前在玛雅人中进行的研究结果进行比较。田野工作包括在资助期间每年与Pume一起生活几个月，以收集几个稀树草原和河流村庄的经济、人口普查和生殖历史数据。数据收集和随后的分析将侧重于确定生存、定居、教育、市场食品的可获得性、医疗保健和交通路线附近的变化，以及这些经济指标如何随着儿童劳动价值、儿童死亡率和生育率的变化而变化。波美人是比较分析的理想研究种群，因为1)稀树大草原和河流群体在同一大环境中表达了一系列经济战略和人口状况，2)波美人正在通过参与雇佣劳动而不是农业集约化进入国民经济，玛雅人也是如此。将玛雅人口对经济变化的反应与Pume社区的对比进行比较，将确定其他人口对营养、劳动力和经济机会变化的反应。更广泛的影响：该项目的新知识将引起关心发展中地区的人口规划者和服务提供者的兴趣。除了这项研究对发展项目和政策制定的价值外，该项目还将启动一个关于Pume文化生存的项目，促进来自阿根廷、委内瑞拉和美国的学生和学者的国际参与，并为学生提供参与国外学习和积极从事自己的高级研究的机会。

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.