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

研究生Amber Huff（佐治亚大学）将在Bram Tucker博士的指导下，在马达加斯加西南部Mikea森林的一个新的生物多样性保护保护区进行研究。研究的重点将放在农村贫困、社会变革和多样化的采食农民的健康经历上。研究人员将使用季节性问卷、人体测量、自我报告健康调查和生活史访谈的结果来确定(1)保护政策是否在粮食不安全、营养状况和感知健康状况方面影响人们的生计和脆弱性；(2)如果当地的社会和经济不平等导致不同程度的社会心理压力，以及(3)如果终身暴露于危险和压力源体现在不同的营养和一般健康结果中。这项研究很重要，因为它将有助于了解世界各地的人们如何通过生计多样性、社会支持和融入市场来应对快速的社会变化。它还将把制定养护政策时的公平和环境正义概念同脆弱人口生计保障的具体问题联系起来。通过阐明限制性生物多样性保护项目如何影响依赖自然资源获取生计的人们，本研究将阐明贫困和社会不平等状况实际传播的经济、生物和社会心理途径。

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.