Doctoral Dissertation Research: Motives for Consuming, Sharing and Trading Wildlife in Urban Cameroon

博士生香农·兰道夫将在斯坦福大学的詹姆斯·霍兰德·琼斯博士和同事的指导下，对喀麦隆城市地区非洲野生动物贸易的社会层面进行研究。喀麦隆首都雅温得的初步人种学研究表明，精英消费者可能会在日益稀有的森林动物的秘密交易中获得声望和联盟利益。如果得到证实，这一发现将挑战普遍存在的观念，即贫穷的非洲城市居民是野生动物的主要消费者和贸易商。造成这种差异的原因可能在于稀有物种市场与普通物种和日常交易之间的区别，前者涉及精英消费者和高价，后者涉及普通物种和日常交易。伦道夫将使用人种学方法调查亲属关系、社会地位和经济地位在“丛林肉”分配和消费中的作用。她还将收集数据，以构建以自我为中心的网络，通过这些网络，她将研究消费者和卖家的社会和人口特征，城市贸易的隐藏社会方面，以及个人消费者获得的文化声望利益。了解丛林肉贸易的细分将使养护和发展政策能够更有效地合作，同时解决贸易商的城市生计问题，并有针对性地对受威胁和濒危物种进行贸易监管。此外，由于丛林肉的消费与各种健康问题有关，该项目将有助于公共卫生政策。这个项目特别重要，因为研究的重点是城市，这是非洲野生动物市场研究的一个方面，在很大程度上仍未得到研究。通过与约翰·霍普金斯大学喀麦隆计划的合作努力，以及培训喀麦隆大学生作为研究助理，这项研究还将有助于能力建设和与非洲伙伴分享知识，以及培训一名美国社会科学家。

Doctoral student Shannon Randolph, under the supervision of Dr. James Holland Jones and colleagues at Stanford University, will undertake research on the social dimensions of the African wildlife trade in urban Cameroon. Preliminary ethnographic research in the Cameroonian capital, Yaoundé, indicates that elite consumers may gain prestige and alliance benefits in the covert trade of increasingly rare forest animals. If confirmed, this finding would challenge the prevailing notion that urban poor Africans are the primary consumers and traders of wildlife. The explanation for this difference may lie in the distinction between the market for rare species, which involves elite consumers and high prices, versus common species and everyday trading.Randolph will use ethnographic methods to investigate the role of kinship, social status, and economic status in the distribution and consumption "bushmeat." She also will collect data to construct ego-centric networks through which she will study social and demographic traits of consumers and sellers, hidden social aspects of the urban trade, and the cultural prestige benefits derived by individual consumers. Understanding the segmentation of the bushmeat trade will enable more effective partnering of conservation and development policies to simultaneously address urban livelihood issues for traders and targeted trade regulation for threatened and endangered species. Additionally, because bushmeat consumption has been linked to a variety of health issues, the project will contribute to public health policy. This project is particularly significant because of the urban focus of the research, an aspect of African wild game market studies that remains largely unstudied. Through collaborative efforts with the Johns Hopkins Cameroon Program and the training of Cameroonian university students as research assistants, this research will also contribute to capacity building and shared knowledge with African partners, as well as the training of an American social scientist.