Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Life History Perspectives on Violent Conflict

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Graduate student Brodie Ferguson, working under the direction of Dr. James Holland Jones, will undertake research to examine the mechanisms through which homicidal violence at the community level realizes and reinforces unequal power relations at the family and interpersonal levels. The relationship between violent conflict and the nature and timing of significant life history events, such as marriage, migration, and childbirth, remains poorly understood. Empirical studies of behavior and culture in low sex-ratio settings are scarce, yet these are precisely the demographic conditions expected to prevail in situations of violent conflict worldwide. Furthermore, theory and evidence demonstrate that unbalanced sex ratios resulting from excess male death carry substantial implications with respect to intrafamiliar power relations, levels of parental investment, and childrearing practices. The researcher will combine existing demographic data from government registries, household surveys, and other sources with original ethnographic research in Colombia. The research will proceed in three phases: (1) collection of demographic data, (2) focused ethnographic research, and (3) the development of formal models of the life course, the predictions of which will be evaluated with respect to both measured values from the representative demographic and survey data and individual stated preferences. By integrating semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and formal demographic techniques into a common life history approach, the project will examine the objective and perceived ways in which community violence conditions certain individual decisions and behaviors made over the life course. As the first study of its kind in a largely industrialized society afflicted by chronic civil strife, the findings will deepen our understanding of the humanitarian impacts of civil violence and generate a range of practical insights relevant to the design and implementation of effective social policies in Colombia. The research also will contribute to the education of a graduate student.