Cultural Consensus Research Articles

From Quantitative Fact to Discursive Practice: Techniques for Asserting the Reliability of Anthropological Knowledge in Expert Testimony

AbstractUnlike other expert witnesses, cultural anthropologists must not only provide expert evidence on the case but also convince judges of its validity for meeting the Daubert standard. In this article, I juxtapose two expert testimony reports I have written in criminal and asylum cases. For the first, I conducted cultural consensus analysis, a formal quantitative technique, to gather data on beliefs about co‐sleeping behavior among Mexican migrants. For the second, I relied on discursive practice to signal the facts as meeting the standard of evidence. I argue that despite anthropology not being an “exact science,” our locus at the intersection of the sciences, social sciences, and humanities provides us with a range of tools to assert the reliability and validity of our testimony.

The Disconnect Between Knowledge and Perceptions: A Study of Fishermen’s Local Ecological Knowledge and Their Perception of the State of Fisheries and How These Are Managed in the Dominican Republic

Understanding what fishers know about the ecology of the fish they catch, and how they perceive the state and management of their fisheries can guide efforts towards more sustainable fishing practices. We tested relationships between fishers’ local ecological knowledge (LEK) and their perceptions of their fisheries and of marine protected areas in the Dominican Republic. A qualitative-quantitative methodological sequence using data from interviews with 152 multi-species fishers revealed variable, but generally high levels of LEK, particularly of habitat use and predator–prey interactions. The majority reported negative perceptions of the state of their fishery and were aware of local management actions. Contrary to study expectations, we found that fishers’ LEK, measured by Cultural Consensus Analysis, did not significantly co-vary with their perceptions of the state of fisheries or with their awareness of, and support for, marine protected areas. These results highlight the need to identify and understand barriers to information flow and communication in local fisheries’ social/political networks.

Identifying and harmonizing the priorities of stakeholders in the Chesapeake Bay environmental monitoring community

Research collaborations between volunteer monitoring groups and environmental scientists and managers are instrumental for understanding and managing complex socioecological systems. In the Chesapeake region, the Chesapeake Monitoring Cooperative (CMC) helps coordinate volunteer monitoring efforts throughout the watershed, and facilitates collaboration between environmental stakeholders. However, stakeholders perceive their environment and their own role in different ways, and these perceptions affect how they prioritize problems and respective solutions. We conducted a survey to explore the extent to which cultural knowledge about environmental monitoring was shared across the CMC community, pinpoint key similarities and differences in how stakeholder groups prioritized various environmental monitoring goals, and understand stakeholders' perspectives of the CMC's resources. We learned that stakeholders drew from a shared system of cultural knowledge surrounding environmental monitoring and prioritized goals related to collecting actionable data and improving environmental conditions. There were also compelling differences in how stakeholder groups prioritized increasing knowledge and building a sense of community. Furthermore, stakeholders especially valued CMC resources associated with increasing the quality, quantity, and accessibility of volunteer-collected data. Based on our results, we developed recommendations to inform the design and coordination of other collaborative environmental monitoring programs. We argue that cultural consensus can provide a foundation for collaboration, and stakeholders' highest-priority monitoring goals can inform organizational priorities and strategic outreach. Furthermore, efforts to build social capital and understand stakeholders' changing priorities over time will be important for ensuring the continued success of the research partnership.

Local ecological knowledge of rural women living in the buffer zone of a conservation unit in Brazil

Conservation Units are recognized worldwide as the best strategy to promote the protection of biodiversity. The local ecological knowledge of women who live in the surroundings of these spaces can be used to record the cumulative sets of knowledge passed down through generations by cultural transmission. The objectives of this study were to identify the wild tree/shrub species of the useful flora known/used in each cultural domain, verify the existence of cultural consensus in each domain indicated, and verify the similarity between species in the cultural domains. Forty interviews were conducted with residents of three communities located in the buffer zone of the Sete Cidades National Park using semi-structured forms and the free list method. Sixty six species belonging to 24 families and 62 genera were recorded, and the existence of three cultural domains was identified: health (36 species), nutrition (35 species), and timber (34 species). Cultural consensus was observed for the three domains. There was a low similarity between the mentioned species in the domains, indicating high versatility. The knowledge of the women about wild vegetation reaffirms their autonomy in different aspects, especially in the family’s health care and food security and sovereignty in these rural populations. It can also contribute to the elaboration of public policies aimed at the conservation of ecological and cultural biodiversity.

Using Cultural Consensus Analysis to Measure Diversity in Social–Ecological Knowledge for Inclusive Climate Adaptation Planning

AbstractClimate adaptation is context specific, and inclusion of diverse forms of knowledge is crucial for developing resilient social–ecological systems. Emphasis on local inclusion is increasing, yet participatory approaches often fall short of facilitating meaningful engagement of diverse forms of knowledge. A central challenge is the lack of a comprehensive and comparative understanding of the social–ecological knowledge that various stakeholders use to inform adaptation decisions. We employed cultural consensus analysis to quantitatively measure and compare social–ecological knowledge within and across three stakeholder groups: government employees, researchers, and local residents in rural coastal Maryland. The results show that 1) local residents placed more emphasis on addressing socioeconomic and cultural changes than researchers and government employees, and 2) that the greatest variation in social–ecological knowledge was found among local residents. These insights yielded by cultural consensus analysis are beneficial for facilitating more inclusive adaptation planning for resilient social–ecological systems.

Time in the United States and diabetes among Mexican immigrant women: The moderating role of culture

Mexican immigrants in the U.S. show high incidence of type 2 diabetes, and increased risk is associated with longer duration of residency. This study considers the impact of culture over time for Mexican immigrant women in a southern U.S. city. Using cultural consensus analysis to empirically derive the substance and structure of a cultural model for la buena vida (the good life) among Mexican immigrant women in Birmingham, Alabama, we assess the extent to which respondents are aligned with the model in their everyday lives. This measure of ‘cultural consonance’ is explored as a moderating variable between length of time living in the U.S. and level of Hemoglobin A1c. Results demonstrate that for those with more time in the U.S., those with lower consonance are more likely to have diabetes, while those who are more aligned with la buena vida are at lower risk.

Understanding migration to protected area buffer zones in Costa Rica utilizing cultural consensus analysis

Human migration to the world’s protected areas’ (PA) buffer zones is widely seen as a significant threat to conserving biodiversity. Research since 2005 has demonstrated some evidence for global migration trends but also highlighted the simultaneous need to understand the local, contextual factors that drive migration around individual PAs. Investigation into human migration patterns to these buffer zones has frequently relied on methods that do not accurately capture the calculus used by migrants in their decisions. The research presented here uses a mixed-methods, cognitive anthropological approach to assess the motivations of Costa Rican migrants to the buffer zones of three national parks. Employing cultural consensus analysis methodology in combination with a demographic analysis based on the Costa Rican census, this study was able to develop important insights into Costa Rican migrant motivations. Importantly, the research finds that there is not a single cultural model among the migrants surveyed regarding conditions driving their decisions. However, data collected indicate significant trends in migrants’ evaluation of critical variables driving decisions, how they relate to one another, and their significance to these migrants. Thus, migrant assessments of the conditions of these variables in both previous and current communities reveal a more complex, contextual picture. This work demonstrates the potential of cognitive anthropological methods to help unpack migrant decision making and help conservation managers understand the factors that drive migration to surrounding communities. The analysis provides further evidence supporting calls for methods that help managers and communities understand the particularities of migration behavior in PA contexts.

The Inheritance and Coordinated Utilization of Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei section of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal

The Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal is a river of history and culture. The coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei section of the canal cultural belt is a national strategy and a local task Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei have a natural humanistic environment with the same blood ties. To some extent, the intangible cultural heritage coexists with the same origin, and its inheritance and coordinated development have achieved initial results However, due to factors such as unbalanced political and economic development in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and weak cultural consensus, there are still obstacles in the road of non-genetic inheritance and collaborative utilization of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei section of the canal. It is urgent to put forward corresponding measures to integrate into the new development pattern and explore a win-win model to promote the high-quality development of non-legacy collaborative utilization in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and continue the vitality of canal culture.

Ethnobotany of edible plants in Muang District, Kalasin Province, Thailand

Abstract. Phatlamphu N, Saensouk S, Saensouk P, Jungsongduang A. 2021. Ethnobotany of edible plants in Muang District, Kalasin Province, Thailand. Biodiversitas 22: 5425- 5431. Edible plants have been used as a food source and have had other purposes since ancient times, but urbanization and modernization might be obscuring traditional knowledge. Therefore, this research aimed to conduct a study on the ethnobotany of indigenous people in Muang District, Kalasin Province based on edible plants by focusing on their specific uses. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions from March 2019 to February 2021. Quantitative analysis was applied using the Cultural Important Index (CI), Fidelity Level (FL) and Informant Consensus Factor (ICF). Cluster analysis based on the Jaccard’s Similarity Index (JI) was calculated for the similarity of edible plant uses in four communities is as follows: urban/semi-urban (UB), forest community (FC), wetland community (WC) and community in valley (CV). There were 140 edible plant species that belonged to 125 genera and 62 families. The most important edible plants species were Tamarindus indica which had a CI of 2.65 followed by Bambusa bambos (2.00) and Citrus hystrix (1.90). The highest FL value is given for 51 edible plant species with 100% FL. The ICF is a range of 0 to 1; the most consensus of ailment categories was the treatment of wound (ICF = 1.00). The JI varied between 0.2640 and 0.2971; the highest JI was the pairs of WC and FC. UPGMA cluster analysis indicated that UB is isolated as they have less similarity to other communities. The results show a risk of traditional knowledge loss due to the expansion of the economic system at all levels and the advancement of modern medicine.

Whose Sidewalk?

Home is a nodal point in a series of polarities, including family-community; space-place; inside-outside; private-public; domestic-social. These may not be stable but seem both solidified and undermined as they play out their meaning and practice in and through the home. The “public” is traditionally the state’s domain, while the “private” the citizens’. But where does “private” end and “public” begin? Can a border or boundary be placed between the two? Is such a boundary culture-specific or universal? Is it static or dynamic? Scholars often perceive borders as barriers and bridges, porous and impenetrable, and border studies have shown that urban entities have their own internal and external borders. I argue that such internal urban micro-boundaries can be found in the domain of domestic space, separating the private from the public, and that they are dynamic and constantly negotiated. Not necessarily marked, they are acknowledged by a mutual and tacit agreement, a social and cultural consensus. In this paper, I focus on common expansions of private into public space in Limassol, Cyprus, and the ways in which, this social consensus is achieved through the use of several tactics. As I illustrate, all these tactics seem to transform public space into private, on a symbolic level. The paper’s contribution lies in the examination of this type of boundary, which has received little academic attention, as well as in the introduction of the term “tactics of inhibition.”

Looking beyond Church Attendance: The Relationship between Parents’ Religious Identity and School Choice

ABSTRACT Parents have specific and peculiar reasons for choosing the schools that they do for their children. Numerous attempts have been made to bring clarity to the matter, but the decision-making processes for school choice – especially as it pertains to faith-based schools – remain somewhat murky. I posit that the religious and cultural identity of a parent may have a significant relationship with the school they choose for their child. By first quantifying the culture of a Protestant denomination in America through the cultural consensus model, I was then able to operationalize that measure as a variable alongside others such as income, educational context and social network. The results indicate that there is a strong association between cultural consonance and choosing – or not choosing – a Seventh-day Adventist school.

Philippine fisherfolk: Sustainable community development action research and reflexive education

ABSTRACT A bioregional participatory study is presented in response to the global need for new mechanisms and methodologies to meet Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for small-scale fisheries (SSF). Herein, a dispersed Philippine fisherfolk community defined by fish-stocks is engaged to elucidate consensus that can support participatory educational programming. A Cultural Consensus Model is characterized within transdisciplinary Participatory Action Research and Learning on sustainable fisheries and poverty mitigation. The bioregional fisherfolk epistemology on Coastal Resource Management as outlined supports food security. Results present an example for national and international applications using social artistry for curriculum development through a government and non-government organization partnership. Recognizing traditional fisherfolk artisanal epistemologies within professional and paraprofessional Ecohealth certification can support mitigation of chronic poverty and promote sustainability through an ecocentric-anthropocentric balance. This Philippine meta-level change mechanism for SSF could also contribute directly to the need for Indigenous and other local input on governing the global-ocean commons.

Context Matters for Food Security: Multi-Sited Evidence of Shared Cultural Models of Food Consumption

ABSTRACT Anthropologists have long emphasized the social significance of foods and the contexts in which they are consumed. Expanding on this idea, we define the context of consumption as the non-eating behaviors that surround eating, such as the manner of food preparation, food sharing, and dietary patterns. In this study, we used cultural consensus analysis to assess whether there exist consistently shared, normative ideas about preferable context of food consumption in three diverse research sites: urban Ethiopia, rural Brazil, and rural Haiti. Our analysis demonstrates that in all three communities, there are distinct sets of behaviors that people identified as non-preferable because they reliably associate them with poverty and food insecurity, and behaviors that people identify as preferable because they reliably associate them with wealth and food security. Across the settings, there was little variation in agreement about behaviors across household composition, age, gender, and food security status. These findings suggest that people do indeed share culturally specific ideas about the context in which foods should be prepared and consumed, beyond the actual content of one’s diet. Exploring these cultural models elucidates the social consequences of food insecurity, enabling researchers to better examine the relationship between food insecurity, social context, and well-being.

Marine meteorological forecasts for coastal ocean users – perceptions, usability and uptake

Abstract. The present study aims to address a disconnect between science and the public in the form of a potential misalignment in the supply and demand of information known as the usability gap. In this case, we explore the salience of marine meteorological (metocean) information as perceived by users in two Southern Hemisphere countries: South Africa and New Zealand. Here, the focus is not only on the perceptions, usability and uptake of extreme event forecasts but rather focused on general, routine forecast engagement. The research was conducted by means of a survey, designed around three research questions. The research questions covered topics ranging from forecasting tool ergonomics, accuracy and consistency, usability, institutional reputation, and uncertainties related to climate change (to name but a few). The online questionnaire was widely distributed to include both recreational and commercial users. The study focused on identifying potential decision-making cultures that uniquely impact coastal ocean users' information needs. Cultural consensus analysis (CCA) was used to investigate shared understandings and variations in perceptions within the total group of respondents as well as in sectoral and country-based subgroups. We found varying degrees of consensus in the whole group (participants from both countries and all sectors combined) versus different subgroups of users. All participants taken together exhibited an overall moderate cultural consensus regarding the issues presented but with some variations in perspectives at the country-level, suggesting potential subcultures. Analysing national and sectoral subgroups separately, we found the most coherent cultural consensus in the South African users' cohort, with strong agreement regardless of sectoral affiliation. New Zealand's commercial users' cohort had the weakest agreement with all other subgroups. We discuss the implications from our findings on important factors in service uptake and therefore on the production of salient forecasts. Several priorities for science-based forecasts in the future are also reflected on, considering anticipated climate change impacts. We conclude by proposing a conceptual diagram to highlight the important interplay between forecast product co-development and scientific accuracy/consistency.

Privacy Tradeoffs: Who Should Make Them, and How?

Privacy debates are contentious in part because we have not reached a broadly recognized cultural consensus about whether interests in privacy are like most other interests that can be traded off in utilitarian, cost-benefit terms, or if instead privacy is different—fundamental to conceptions of dignity and personal liberty. Thus, at the heart of privacy debates is an unresolved question: is privacy just another interest that can and should be bartered, mined, and used in the economy, or is it different? This question identifies and isolates a wedge between those who hold essentially utilitarian views of ethics (and who would see many data practices as acceptable) and those who hold views of natural and fundamental rights (for whom common data mining practices are either never acceptable or, at the very least, never acceptable without significant participation and consent of the subject). This essay provides an intervention of a purely descriptive sort. First, I lay out several candidates for ethical guidelines that might legitimately undergird privacy law and policy. Only one of the ethical models (the natural right to sanctuary) can track the full scope and implications of fundamental rights-based privacy laws like the GDPR. Second, the project contributes to the field of descriptive ethics by using a vignette experiment to discover which of the various ethical models people actually do seem to hold and abide by. The vignette study uses a factorial design to help isolate the roles of various factors that may contribute to the respondents’ gauge of what an ethical firm should or should not do in the context of personal data use as well as two other non-privacy-related contexts. The results can shed light on whether privacy-related ethics are different and distinct from business ethics more generally. They also illuminate which version(s) of good and “bad” share broad support and deserve to be reflected in privacy law or business practice. The results of the vignette experiment show that on balance, Americans subscribe to some form of utilitarianism, although a substantial minority subscribe to a natural right to sanctuary approach. Thus, consent and prohibitions of data practices are appropriate where the likely risks to some groups (most importantly, data subjects, but also firms and third parties) outweigh the benefits.

I feel loved when other people feel loved: Cultural congruence in beliefs on love is related to well-being

Cultural conformity in psychological constructs has been shown to play a critical role in people’s health and well-being. The more people’s individual beliefs about a construct aligns with the cultural norms, their cultural identity is more cultivated, leading to higher levels of well-being. Considering feeling loved in everyday contexts as a social construct that people indicate shared beliefs and cultural consensus for, in the current study, we explored congruency in cultural beliefs on love and its association with well-being in the United States. 495 participants in the United States evaluated everyday life scenarios in terms of whether they elicit loving feelings or not. We examined the correspondence between people’s beliefs about what makes themselves (i.e., self) feel loved compared to what they think makes others feel loved and the cultural consensus on indicators of love. We then explored how individual differences in these correspondence measures are associated with people’s well-being. We reported evidence for the lack as well as for the existence of these associations using Bayes Factors in the Bayesian statistical framework. Results indicated that both self-other and self-consensus agreements are meaningfully associated with individuals’ well-being. Furthermore, when examining disagreements in self vs. other ratings of love, we found that one type of disagreement (believing other people feel loved in scenarios that I don’t), is associated with lower levels of well-being. This meaningful relationship to well-being was not visible in the case where a person would report feeling loved in a scenario while believing that others would not. Implications for well-being interventions are further discussed.

Adapting services for autism: Recommendations from a specialist multidisciplinary perspective using freelisting

The guidance available for tailoring mental health services for autistic people is limited and dispersed. Practitioners attempting to appropriately adapt mental healthcare and therapy provision report low confidence and inconsistency in their approach. This study contributes to the guidance by providing a shortlist of usable and priority adaptations for diagnostic and therapy services as described by multidisciplinary staff members responsible for the design and delivery of a specialist autism service in the UK. Individual freelisting interviews were conducted with 15 staff, who were asked to list the ways that they adapt their practice individually, within therapy, and collectively as a service. Salience and cultural consensus analyses demonstrated the following agreed priority service adaptations: ensuring the suitability of the service environment with consideration of sensory demands, adapting communication, knowing individual gender identity preferences and minimising client uncertainty. Detailed examples are given for flexibly adapting therapy to individual needs to inform general and specialist services. The findings require replication and evaluation.

Gender, work, and tourism in the Guatemalan Highlands

While much of modern tourism research centers on the tourist as a leisure consumer, workers are frequently overlooked. Despite a recent uptick in attention to tourism work, the primary focus remains on employee’s skills and qualifications. In contrast, the key contextual factors of race, ethnicity, and gender that surround tourism work are seldom examined. This comparative study addresses the theme of traditional gender roles, particularly in patriarchal societies, and how they affect tourism work. Specifically, it investigates how the presence of tourism influences cultural norms determining appropriate jobs for men and women. Utilizing an ethnographic field research approach, data were collected from participants in two indigenous Maya communities in Guatemala, each with differing models and lengths of tourism development. Free-listing exercises were used to elicit residents’ perceptions of employment as it relates to gender in their community and cultural consensus analysis was used to analyze the data. Results show that neither community shares consensus on jobs for women and only one community shares consensus on men’s jobs. Results suggest that tourism disrupts cultural norms related to gender roles; yet this may not always benefit women.

Ethnoveterinary knowledge of sheep and goat farmers in Benin (West Africa): effect of socioeconomic and environmental factors

Sheep and goats are two of the main animal species raised in Benin and one of the main sources of income for people living in rural areas. Faced with the inaccessibility of synthetic veterinary products and their low purchasing power, the majority of breeders use ethnoveterinary practices to treat small ruminants diseases. The specific objectives of the current study were (1) to document the traditional knowledge regarding the disorder groups treated and the medicinal plants used in the health and zootechnical management of small ruminants in Benin and (2) to assess the effect of gender, ethnicity, agro-ecological zone and herd size associated with them. To achieve these objectives, an ethnoveterinary survey was conducted in different agro-ecological zones from September 2018 to February 2019. A questionnaire was administered to 506 breeders. The data were analyzed through calculation of the Fidelity Level (FL), Cultural Importance Index (CI) and Informant Consensus Factor (ICF). Ten disorder groups were treated by the people surveyed. These were mainly digestive disorders (D) and reproductive disorders (W), both presenting a ICF value of 0.8. A total of 101 medicinal plants belonging to 42 families and 90 genera were recorded. Spondias mombin, Zanthoxylum zanthoxyloides and Khaya senegalensis were the most important plants with CI values of 0.208, 0.125 and 0.121, respectively. Gender, ethnicity, agro-ecological zone and flocks size were the socioeconomic and environmental factors that significantly influenced the level of ethnoveterinary knowledge. Chemical and biological analysis are needed on less studied plants such as, Striga hermonthica, Crossopteryx febrifuga, Elaeis guineensis and Momordica charantia.

Chinese Excellent Traditional Culture Study on the Path of Integrating the Ideological and Political Courses in Primary and Middle Schools

Chinese excellent traditional culture contains the value pursuit of the Chinese nation, condenses the cultural consensus of the Chinese nation, and has rich connotation and connotation. At the moment of advocating the integration of ideological and political courses in primary and secondary schools, the integration of Chinese traditional culture into the curriculum content of ideological and political courses can have a subtle cultural impact on the students of different students, and help students to grow up physically and mentally and cultivate their ideology and morality. In order to achieve ideological and political curriculum implicit development.