Subsistence Decisions in Southwestern Madagascar: Coping with Poverty and Hunger or Social Learning?

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Cultural anthropologist, Dr. Bram Tucker, will undertake research in southwestern Madagascar to scientifically evaluate the role of individual learning and the role of social learning in subsistence decision making among poor people. One of the classic debates in social science is whether people are autonomous agents who make strategic decisions in their own best interest, or whether human behavior results from conformity to society and cultural norms. Southwestern Malagasy claim that their social identities represent different economic specializations: Masikoro claim to be primarily farmers, Vezo fishers, and Mikea hunter-gatherers. Yet in practice, all households combine farming, fishing, foraging, herding, and market-oriented activities to some degree. In choosing which activity to practice, decision-makers must judge the value of different types of rewards: food versus cash, immediate versus delayed rewards (called time preference), and certainty versus risk (risk preference). If decision-makers are strategizing individualists, then their preferences are predicted to vary from one person to the next according to each person's situation and needs (measured as material wealth, social wealth, income, food insecurity, and hunger). If decision-makers are social conformists, then their preferences should be uniform within social groups (interpersonal networks, villages, clans, or identities). The study will include 360 adult men and women from two Masikoro, two Vezo, and two Mikea villages, over the course of four seasons (to detect seasonal changes) in 2007-2008. Two teams of data collectors (instructors and students from the University of Georgia and the Universite de Toliara, Madagascar) will collect the data. Subsistence preferences will be measured experimentally by asking people to choose among four options that differ either by amount and delay (time preference) or amount and probability (risk preference). More extensive data will be collected with a questionnaire to record age, sex, subsistence strategy, village residence, clan membership, and social identity. These data will be supplemented with interviews and observations to collect and evaluate material and social wealth, income, food security, hunger, market integration, and narratives about delayed and risky choices. The research is important because it will contribute to social science theory about how poverty affects decision-making. It integrates method and theory among economics, cultural anthropology, and behavioral ecology; and explores the salience of wealth, a ubiquitous but poorly understood variable in social analyses. The research also will contribute cross-cultural data to help resolve the significant microeconomic question of how people comparatively value dissimilar options, such as immediate versus delayed rewards, and certainty versus risk. More generally, scientific research that looks at how poverty affects decision making is significant for combating poverty.