The Moral Economy of Water Reexamined: Reciprocity, Water Insecurity, and Urban Survival in Cochabamba, Bolivia
KEY WORDS: Reciprocity, Water insecurity, Water scarcity, Moral economy, Self-help, Self- insurance, Vulnerability, Bolivia
ABSTRACT: Recent debates have questioned whether reciprocity constitutes a threatened form of social insurance or a nascent and promising pathway toward development. This debate is of vital importance for understanding how the urban poor survive in the face of subsistence challenges that are likely to intensify in the future. In this article, I present an in-depth analysis of reciprocal exchanges of water in a water-scarce squatter settlement in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Drawing on qualitative and quantitative analyses, I demonstrate (1) how reciprocal exchanges of water are conducted in an urban setting; (2) that these water exchanges conform to a social insurance model of reciprocity; and (3) that such reciprocal exchanges are consistent with the moral economy of water documented elsewhere in the Andes. I conclude that reciprocity, while capable of safeguarding subsistence, is not a solution for people whose survival is continually threatened by larger political and economic forces that create water insecurity, resource inequity, and social exclusion among the urban poor.
Local Perceptions of “Quality of Life” in Rural China: Implications for Anthropology and Participatory Development
KEY WORDS: Development anthropology, International development, Participation, Quality of life, Social indicators, China
ABSTRACT: One of the main challenges faced by anthropologists and practitioners who work in international development is the identification of locally appropriate objectives and outcomes for development projects. In recent years, improving the quality of life of target populations has emerged as a key objective of many development agencies, but there is little consensus about how best to define and operationalize this concept. This paper applies anthropological research methods to understand a local population’s definitions of quality of life in one rapidly developing township in rural Sichuan, China. The paper also examines the patterning of attitudes about quality of life across occupational groups in the study community. Data are drawn from ethnographic interviews and quantitative surveys. Findings suggest that villagers’ definitions of quality of life consist of a range of themes related to both material living standards and subjective measures. Occupational groups differ markedly in their quality-of-life ratings, a pattern that is in line with the widening economic disparities in rural communities throughout China as the nation’s economy undergoes liberal economic reforms. Implications for anthropological theory and practice, and for the practice of participatory development, are also discussed.
On the Question of Short-Term Neanderthal Site Occupations: Payre, France (MIS 8-7), and Taubach/Weimar, Germany (MIS 5)
KEY WORDS: Middle Paleolithic, Neanderthal behavior, Occupation duration, Payre, Taubach, Weimar
ABSTRACT: We analyze and compare the evidence of human behavior from two Middle Paleolithic localities with short-term (seasonal) occupations: Payre in France (level F, correlated to MIS 8-7) and Taubach in Germany (correlated to MIS 5e). We focus on the lithic assemblages from these occupation levels. Our analysis takes the density of lithic material, technological choices, and the typological composition of the assemblages in the two localities into account. In light of previously published models, the results are partially consistent with various types of land-use as supported by analysis of the lithic assemblages. Our results confirm that Neanderthals were able to develop diverse behaviors in different locations. Although flexible and highly adaptable among the different seasons and landscapes of Western Europe, different types of short occupations may indicate the same kinds of technical and typological strategies.
The Use of Mollusc Shells as Tools by Coastal Human Groups: The Contribution of Ethnographical Studies to Research on Mesolithic and Early Neolithic Technologies in Northern Spain
David Cuenca Solana and Igor Gutiérrez Zugasti
KEY WORDS: Shell tools, Ethnography, Technology, Archaeomalacology, Functional analysis, Hunter-gatherers
ABSTRACT: In European archaeology, the malacological remains recovered in archaeological contexts have traditionally been considered almost exclusively as food waste. In other cases, this view has been broadened in order to study these remains as an expression of aspects of the social organization of the human groups, based on the use of perforated shells as objects of personal ornamentation. However, the study of these natural resources as raw materials for the manufacture of tools aimed at satisfying the production needs of the human groups has been very limited. This little-developed aspect of research is at variance with the abundant ethnographic information from many different periods and geographical settings showing that malacological resources were used in many complex and varied ways. This paper is an attempt at compiling a small part of this ethnographic information—a contribution which, through its critical application to the archaeological record, is of interest in establishing a methodology for studying this type of evidence. In the specific case of northern Spain, information from ethnographic studies has been used to develop an appropriate methodology with which to approach the analysis of this kind of archaeological evidence, as recently documented for the first time at the classic site of Santimamiñe (Basque Country). At the same time, the documentation of shell tools could provide an explanation for the scarcity of “traditional technologies” that characterizes many Mesolithic and early Neolithic sites in northern Spain.
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