Collaborative Research: Vulnerable Transitions and Cumulative Embodied Stress Among Teens in High-Risk, High Stakes Pastoralism

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The years between childhood and adulthood are universally recognized as a stage in normal human development. But despite the fact that scientists know that adolescence is understood and experienced differently in different cultures and societies, most studies of adolescents have taken place in Western societies. Therefore, much remains unknown about this significant period of human development. For this reason, anthropologists have recently directed increased attention to studying adolescents cross-culturally. This particular award is to a research team who ask a particularly important and timely question about the adolescent years: what are the effects of growing up in a violent environment? Unfortunately, violence is part of the daily reality for many adolescents around the world, including many in the United States. Examining the effects of violence on the adolescent years in a non-Western context will allow social scientists and policy makers to differentiate between effects that are local and cultural, and those that are universal, which is essential for developing effective strategies for buffering the effects of violence on adolescents wherever they might live. The research team is comprised of cultural anthropologist Dr. Bilinda S. Straight (Western Michigan University) and biological anthropologist Dr. Ivy L. Pike (University of Arizona). The research will be carried out in a conflict-ridden pastoralist zone of East Africa where the researchers have previously collected comparative, longitudinal data on 215 households in pastoralist communities that vary by their exposure to violence. The researchers will build on that data with a sample of 660 young people. They will (1) examine the daily movements of adolescent girls and boys (ages 10-19) between settlement and pasture, cattle camp, and other activity sites; (2) monitor energy expenditure with fitness tracking devices and activity recall combined with nutritional assessments using anthropometry and dietary recall; (3) measure adolescent psychosocial stress through multiple bio-markers, validated assessment instruments, and intensive ethnographic interviews; and (4) elicit the choices, explanations, and emotions of adolescent boys and girls in the context of their varied daily experiences.