Collaborative Research: Social Context of Fertility Decisions in Tanzania

这个项目是由布朗大学的人类学家和哈佛大学的人口学家合作进行的，在全球经济变化的背景下研究坦桑尼亚的生育率转变过程。基本问题是解释为什么在区域生态和经济变化的背景下，一个民族正在从高生育率和不使用节育措施过渡到低生育率和广泛使用节育措施。基本经济正在从耕作农业转向雇佣劳动，这正在影响社会关系，并将传统的宗法权威转向更多以夫妇为中心的关系。这项研究的主要假设是，向夫妻婚姻的转变，在这种婚姻中，伴侣就决定进行沟通，男性和女性的利益趋同，有助于促进接受生育限制。该项目将利用人种学技术，在家庭一级建立重要的社会、亲属和家庭关系的地方表现形式，在当地进行调查，将微观层面的人种学见解扩展到区域一级，并对夫妇进行密集访谈，了解他们的共同决策和沟通方式，项目将展示这些全球变化在坦桑尼亚乞力马扎罗这一地区是如何发生的。将比较两个村庄，一个是穆斯林更传统一些，另一个是路德教徒稍微不那么传统的社区。这项研究是了解生态、生产活动和社会关系之间的联系的广泛尝试的一部分，这些联系影响着生育率从高生育率向低生育率的转变。这是在新一轮将女性自主权和生育与社会和经济背景联系起来的研究浪潮之后进行的。因此，这一结果将对面临类似情况的发展中世界其他地区的人口规划者具有重大意义和用处。

This project is a collaborative study by an anthropologist from Brown University and a demographer from Harvard, studying the process of fertility transition in Tanzania in the context of global economic changes. The basic question is to explain why a transition from high fertility and no use of birth control to low fertility and the widespread use of birth control is happening in one ethnic group, in the context of changes in the regional ecology and economy. The basic economy is shifting away from hoe agriculture towards wage labor, which is impacting social relations and shifting the traditional patriarchal lineage authority towards more couple-centered relations. The major hypotheses of the study is that a shift towards a conjugal union where partners communicate about decisions and the interests of men and women converge is instrumental in facilitating the acceptance of fertility limitation. Using techniques of ethnography to establish the local manifestation of crucial social, kinship and family relations as they are instituted on the household level, local surveys to extend the micro-level ethnographic insights to a regional level, and intensive interviews with a sample of couples on their joint decision-making and communication styles, the project will show how these global changes are working out in this one region of Kilimanjaro, Tanzania. Two villages will be compared, a Muslim somewhat more traditional and a Lutheran somewhat less traditional community. This research is part of a broad attempt to understand the linkages between ecology, production activities and social relations which affect fertility transitions from high to low reproduction. It follows a new wave of research which links female autonomy and fertility to the social and economic context. As such the results will be significant and useful to population planners in other areas of the developing world which face similar situations.