Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Social Change, Livelihoods, and Nutritional Outcomes Among Mikea of Southwest Madagascar

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Graduate student Amber Huff (University of Georgia), supervised by Dr. Bram Tucker, will undertake research in a new biodiversity conservation protected area in the Mikea Forest of southwestern Madagascar. The focus of the research will be on the experience of rural poverty, social change, and health among diversified forager-farmers. The researcher will use the results of a seasonal questionnaire, anthropometric measurements, a self-report health survey, and life history interviews to determine (1) if conservation policies impact people's livelihoods and vulnerability in terms of food insecurity, nutritional status, and perceived health status; (2) if local social and economic inequalities cause different levels of psychosocial stress, and (3) if lifelong exposures to hazards and stressors are embodied in different nutritional and general health outcomes. This research is important because it will contribute to understanding how people throughout the world cope with rapid social change through livelihoods diversity, social support, and integration into markets. It also will connect the concept of equity and environmental justice in conservation policy formulation to specific issues of livelihood security for vulnerable populations. By elucidating the ways in which restrictive biodiversity conservation projects can affect people whose livelihoods depend on access to natural resources, this research will illuminate the economic, biological, and psychosocial pathways by which conditions of poverty and social inequality are actually transmitted.