Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Life History Perspectives on Violent Conflict

研究生布罗迪·弗格森将在詹姆斯·霍兰德·琼斯博士的指导下进行研究，研究社区层面的杀人暴力是如何实现和加强家庭和人际层面的不平等权力关系的。暴力冲突与重大生活史事件（如结婚、移民和生育）的性质和时间之间的关系仍然知之甚少。关于低性别比例环境下的行为和文化的实证研究很少，但这些恰恰是预计在世界各地暴力冲突局势中普遍存在的人口条件。此外，理论和证据表明，男性死亡过多导致的性别比例失衡对熟悉的权力关系、亲代投资水平和育儿做法都有重大影响。该研究人员将把来自政府登记处、家庭调查和其他来源的现有人口数据与哥伦比亚的原始人种学研究结合起来。这项研究将分三个阶段进行：(1)收集人口统计数据；(2)集中进行人种学研究；(3)开发生命历程的正式模型，对这些模型的预测将根据代表性人口统计和调查数据的测量值以及个人陈述的偏好进行评估。通过将半结构化访谈、参与者观察和正式的人口统计技术整合到共同生活史方法中，该项目将研究社区暴力在生命历程中影响某些个人决定和行为的客观和可感知的方式。作为在一个受长期内乱困扰的主要工业化社会进行的首次此类研究，研究结果将加深我们对国内暴力的人道主义影响的理解，并产生一系列与哥伦比亚有效社会政策的设计和执行有关的实际见解。这项研究也将有助于研究生的教育。

Graduate student Brodie Ferguson, working under the direction of Dr. James Holland Jones, will undertake research to examine the mechanisms through which homicidal violence at the community level realizes and reinforces unequal power relations at the family and interpersonal levels. The relationship between violent conflict and the nature and timing of significant life history events, such as marriage, migration, and childbirth, remains poorly understood. Empirical studies of behavior and culture in low sex-ratio settings are scarce, yet these are precisely the demographic conditions expected to prevail in situations of violent conflict worldwide. Furthermore, theory and evidence demonstrate that unbalanced sex ratios resulting from excess male death carry substantial implications with respect to intrafamiliar power relations, levels of parental investment, and childrearing practices. The researcher will combine existing demographic data from government registries, household surveys, and other sources with original ethnographic research in Colombia. The research will proceed in three phases: (1) collection of demographic data, (2) focused ethnographic research, and (3) the development of formal models of the life course, the predictions of which will be evaluated with respect to both measured values from the representative demographic and survey data and individual stated preferences. By integrating semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and formal demographic techniques into a common life history approach, the project will examine the objective and perceived ways in which community violence conditions certain individual decisions and behaviors made over the life course. As the first study of its kind in a largely industrialized society afflicted by chronic civil strife, the findings will deepen our understanding of the humanitarian impacts of civil violence and generate a range of practical insights relevant to the design and implementation of effective social policies in Colombia. The research also will contribute to the education of a graduate student.