Indigenous Households Research Articles

Análisis de las economías familiares en el bienestar de las etnias zapotecas y chatinas de la Sierra Sur de Oaxaca en 2013

This article addresses the analysis of the well-being of 121 Zapotec and Chatino households in the Southern Sierra of the state of Oaxaca; specifically, the household economy is evaluated and a theoretical model of well-being composed of 27 independent variables is tested. Some of these variables include: income, diet, vulnerability, socio-demographic characteristics, assets and quality of housing. The information arises from structured interviews, funded by the CDI, to householders between September and October 2013. The dependent variable “The Well-Being of Indigenous Households ( BHI )” was constructed through the multivariate technique of factor analysis considering the following spending items: food, health, education, clothing, transportation, and electricity. The variable BHI was stratified through the method of optimal stratification from Dalenius and Hodges (1959). Afterwards, the well-being model that establishes defined relationships between BHI and the independent significant variables through multiple regression analysis was built. Thus, it was possible to identify those variables that favor or restrict well-being through two linear equations.

Germination Responses of Cañahua (Chenopodium pallidicaule Aellen) to Temperature and Sowing Depth: A Crop Growing Under Extreme Conditions

AbstractCañahua (Chenopodium pallidicaule) is grown in the Altiplano of Bolivia and Peru, between 3810 and 4200 m a.s.l. Rural indigenous households have cultivated the cañahua as a subsistence crop for millennia. The seeds have a high content and quality of protein. We studied the relation between the following: (i) temperature and seed germination and (ii) the effect of temperature and sowing depth on seedling emergence of five cultivars and one landrace. Three experiments were conducted as follows: (i) seeds of a cultivar were germinated in Petri dishes at six temperatures (3, 5, 10, 14, 20 and 24 °C), (ii) sown at five depths (0, 5, 10, 25 and 50 mm) in a mixed peat soil substrate at three temperatures and (iii) one landrace (Lasta) and 5 cultivars (Lasta and Saihua growth habit) were sown in 6 depth (0, 5, 10, 25, 35 and 50 mm) in a sandy loam at two temperatures (5 and 15 °C). Temperature had significantly effect on the germination percentages of the plants (P < 0.001). Seeds germinated at the lowest temperature (3 °C). The estimated base temperature was close to 0 °C. A polynomial function described well the relation between time to 50% germination (t50) and temperature in the interval from 3 to 24 °C resulting in a linear relationship between germination rate and temperature. Shallow sowing depth (5–25 mm) resulted in 80% germination at 15 °C. There were significant differences of emergence in relationship to burial depth (P < 0.001). Only few seedlings emerged when seeds were sown at 50 mm depth. We did not find significant differences in emergence of seedlings between Lasta and Saihua at 15 °C. Nevertheless, at 5 °C, seedlings of cañahua belonging to the Lasta growth habit form did have higher germination rate as were shown for the Kullaca cultivar and the Umacutama landrace. This may be attributed to larger seed size of these cultivars.

Oil Extraction and Indigenous Livelihoods in the Northern Ecuadorian Amazon

Globally, the extraction of minerals and fossil fuels is increasingly penetrating into isolated regions inhabited by indigenous peoples, potentially undermining their livelihoods and well-being. To provide new insight to this issue, we draw on a unique longitudinal dataset collected in the Ecuadorian Amazon over an 11-year period from 484 indigenous households with varying degrees of exposure to oil extraction. Fixed and random effects regression models of the consequences of oil activities for livelihood outcomes reveal mixed and multidimensional effects. These results challenge common assumptions about these processes and are only partly consistent with hypotheses drawn from the Dutch disease literature.

Income diversification of migrant colonists vs. indigenous populations: Contrasting strategies in the Amazon

How do migrant colonists and indigenous populations differ in their land and labor allocation in the Amazon, and what does this imply for their income levels/livelihoods and the environment? We address this by analyzing patterns of on- and off-farm employment of rural populations, both mestizo and indigenous, in the Ecuadorian Amazon. We use data from an unusual survey that covers both mestizo and indigenous households. As elsewhere in rural areas of the developing world, off-farm employment is found to be the principal income source for 68% of the population and accounts for 53% of total household income on average. Within off-farm employment, farm wage employment is most common for the poor, who usually have little human (education) or natural capital (agricultural land). For educated individuals, in contrast, non-farm wage employment is commonly the choice. In the Amazon, the government (national, provincial, municipal) is the main employer, which is linked to recent large government investment in infrastructure and decentralization, leading to significant expansion of non-farm employment opportunities for rural populations close to major towns. The implications of this for livelihoods, sustainable development and the environment are explored in the conclusions.

Inseguridad alimentaria y estado de nutrición en menores de cinco años de edad en México

Objetivo. Estudiar la relación entre la desnutrición infantil y la inseguridad alimentaria (IA) en una muestra de hogares con preescolares en México. Material y métodos. Se analizó la información de 10 513 preescolares y sus familias. Se midió la IA de los hogares con la Escala Latinoamericana y Caribeña de Seguridad Alimentaria (ELCSA). Se describen prevalencias de IA y desnutrición con variables asociadas y modelos logísticos. Resultados. 31% de los hogares presentaron IA moderada y severa. Los hogares rurales, del sur, los Q1 y Q2 y los indígenas presentaron las mayores prevalencias de IA moderada y severa. Se observa una tendencia de mayores prevalencias de desnutrición en el grupo con IA severa; las prevalencias de sobrepeso son similares en los cuatro grupos de IA. Conclusiones. El riesgo de desnutrición crónica es 42% mayor en menores de cinco años de hogares con IA severa en relación con los que viven en situación de seguridadalimentaria.

Desnutrición crónica y anemia en niños menores de 5 años de hogares indígenas del Perú – Análisis de la Encuesta Demográfica y de Salud Familiar 2013.

Introducción: La desnutrición crónica y anemia infantil son un problema importante de salud pública, cuyas consecuencias se manifiestan a lo largo de todo el ciclo vital. El Estado peruano se caracteriza por albergar una de las mayores riquezas etnoculturales del continente americano, siendo la Amazonía Peruana la región que posee la mayor diversidad de grupos indígenas del país. Objetivo: Determinar la prevalencia de desnutrición crónica y anemia en niños menores de 5 años de hogares indígenas del Perú. Diseño: análisis secundario de los datos de la Encuesta Demográfica y de Salud Familiar (ENDES) 2013, del Instituto Nacional de Estadística e Informática (INEI). Institución: Segunda Especialidad en Nutrición Pública, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marco. Lima, Perú. Participantes: Niños menores de 5 años de hogares de la región natural selva en los cuales el idioma principal es una lengua indígena. Principales medidas de resultados: Desnutrición crónica (<-2 DE para valores Z de talla para la edad) y anemia (<11 g/dL de hemoglobina ajustado por altitud). Resultados: La desnutrición crónica afectó al 43,0%y la anemia al 43,5% de los niños menores de 5 años de hogares indígenas. No existió una asociación estadísticamente significativa entre desnutrición crónica con el sexo ni edad del niño, ni entre la anemia y sexo del niño. Sin embargo, sí se encontró asociación entre la edad del menor y la anemia (p <0,001). Conclusiones: La desnutrición crónica y anemia resultaron elevadas en niños menores de 5 años de hogares indígenas en la selva del Perú, siendo evidentes las grandes desigualdades en la situación de pobreza, servicios básicos y salud de los niños indígenas.

Exploring the Differential Impact of Public Interventions on Indigenous People: Lessons from Mexico's Conditional Cash Transfer Program

This paper uses experimental panel data for Mexico from 1997 to 2000 in order to test assumptions on the impact of a conditional cash transfer (CCT) program on child labor and school attendance, adding to the literature by emphasizing the differential impact on indigenous households. Using data from the CCT program, PROGRESA (later on known as OPORTUNIDADES), we investigate the interaction between child labor, education and indigenous households. While indigenous children had a greater probability of working before the intervention, this probability is reversed after treatment in the program. Indigenous monolingual children also had lower school attainment compared with Spanish-speaking or indigenous bilingual children. After the program, school attainment among indigenous children increased, reducing the gap. In terms of child labor, the larger reduction is in the group of bilingual children.

The vexed link between social capital and social mobility for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people

Overcoming the socio‐economic disparity between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non‐Indigenous Australians is a long‐standing social policy objective: one largely shared by Indigenous people. Achievement will require Indigenous individuals and households to be socially mobile, a process integrally involved with social capital, existing and requisite. The lack of research on Indigenous social mobility or its attendant social capital connections is addressed in this paper through an exploratory analysis of this interaction across three dimensions: distinctive patterns of Indigenous social capital; the transferability of Indigenous social capital; and traversing the social capital divide. The implications drawn, while tentative, indicate that for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people the intersection of the processes of social mobility and social capital is vexed, and contains hazards and costs not fully shared by socially mobile non‐Indigenous households. The Indigenous‐specific factors of a gendered professional class, the identity–social capital link, and Indigenous labour market circumstances all indicate that more research and a more nuanced understanding of Indigenous social mobility is necessary. Social policy recommendations include broadening the concept of cultural leave to include bonding social capital obligations, especially for women, and re‐evaluation of how to support Indigenous career trajectories and transferable skill sets.

Child Endowments and Parental Investments: Intra-Household Allocation in Oportunidades Families in Mexico

This paper estimates a family fixed‐effects model to test whether parental educational investments are reinforcing or compensating differences in child height and body mass index (BMI) within Oportunidades households. The results indicate that allocations are not made in response to endowment differences in isolation, but depend on the interaction of child endowment, gender, and beneficiary status. Moreover, investments are made so as to counterbalance efficiency and equity considerations: widening differences in height but closing gaps in BMI, where both strategies maximize returns given the earnings–endowment function for height and BMI in Mexico. Finally, household socio‐economic status matters. Thus, discriminatory responses within the better‐off urban beneficiary households are smaller. In contrast, indigenous beneficiary households, which have the lowest average endowment z‐scores and fraction spent on education, see the largest differences in educational outlay between child subgroups. While the economic effects seem small, these are measured relative to the mean of the base category. In some cases, then, parents are dedicating nearly a quarter of all expenditures to education for a standard deviation increase in endowment over mean sibling endowment. Hence, it seems that the success of the Oportunidades program in improving overall human capital formation may be masking rising inequalities within recipient households.

Livelihood Dependency of Indigenous People on Forest in Jharkhand, India

The study investigated the extent of live-lihood dependency on forest, socioeconomic characteristics and their relationship with forest dependency in indigenous people of Bundu block in Ranchi, Jharkhand, India. The sample for the study was drawn by multi-stage random sampling technique. The data were collected through personal interviews, direct observations, semi-structure interview with key informants and focus group discussion. Correlation and multiple regression analysis were used to ascertain the relationships between the livelihood dependen-cy on forest in the indigenous households and their socioeconomic characteristics. Results re-veal that the small timber, fuelwood, fodder, sal leaf, lac and tooth brush are the main income generation sources backing up the livelihood needs of the target population. The forest acts as the second prime contributor to livelihoods. The indigenous people are in underprivileged condition with respect to their socioeconomic characteristics. Among the socioeconomic char-acteristics of the indigenous households, educa-tion, social participation, family composition, main occupation, housing status, farm power, farm implements, livestock possession, wealth status and gross annual income had exhibited positively significant correlation with the liveli-hood dependency on forest and age and size of land holding have non-significant association with the livelihood dependency on forest. All the socioeconomic characteristics of the indigenous people put together had contributed to 70.05% (R2= 0.705) variation on the livelihood depend-ency on forest. Further, among these variables, only family composition exercised positive and significant contribution on livelihood dependen-cy on forest. The findings and perspective of the study could be crucial bases in planning and ad-ministration of innovative interventions through various rural developmental installations for all-round development of the indigenous people.

Bushmeat networks link the forest to urban areas in the trifrontier region between Brazil, Colombia, and Peru

Recent studies have intended to quantify urban consumption and trade in Amazonian towns. However, little is still known about the different ways in which bushmeat is made available in urban areas, including commercial and noncommercial flows, and how those flows contribute to link forests to urban livelihoods. In this study we qualitatively describe the structure and functioning of bushmeat flows in terms of species, catchment area, stakeholders involved, and the motivations for their activity in the main towns of the Amazon trifrontier region between Brazil, Colombia, and Peru. We show that bushmeat trade to urban areas exists under an organized but invisible commodity chain providing a source of income to about 195 persons. Bushmeat is made available either directly from the hunter to the urban consumer, at the main market place, or in food stalls and restaurants. On the Colombian border, the trade is totally invisible, whereas in Peru and Brazil, bushmeat is sold in open markets despite regulations. The catchment area comprises the main rivers: up to Caballococha along the Amazon River, along the Atacuary River in Peru, along the Javari River between Peru and Brazil, and along the Loretoyacu and Amacayacu rivers in Colombia and in periurban forests. Although the trade is rather localized (no commercial flows to larger towns), international transborder trade is commonplace, disregarding Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora regulations. Bushmeat clients in urban areas are mainly nonindigenous or mestizos who can afford bushmeat as a luxury meal. Instead, indigenous people in urban areas do not access bushmeat through the market but rather through their social networks with whom they maintain noncommercial flows including immediate exchange and long-term exchange mechanisms. Although bushmeat is no longer consumed as a daily meal among urban and periurban indigenous families, it constitutes what could be called a festival food, referring to the use of food to express cultural values and origin. These results highlight the need to differentiate bushmeat trade and noncommercial flows of bushmeat in law enforcement activities. Indeed, although bushmeat trade is banned in all three countries, subsistence use is allowed. Bushmeat consumption contributes to urban subsistence when it is obtained as a gift, and this pattern is increasingly characteristic among mobile and multisited indigenous households in urban Amazon.

Gendered commodity chains: seeing women's work and households in global production

Gendered Commodity Chains is the first book to consider the fundamental role of gender in global commodity chains. It challenges long-held assumptions of global economic systems by identifying the crucial role social reproduction plays in production and by declaring the household as an important site of production. In affirming the importance of women's work in global production, this cutting-edge volume fills an important gender gap in the field of global commodity and value chain analysis.With thirteen chapters by an international group of scholars from sociology, anthropology, economics, women's studies, and geography, this volume begins with an eye-opening feminist critique of existing commodity chain literature. Throughout its remaining five parts, Gendered Commodity Chains addresses ways women's work can be integrated into commodity chain research, the forms women's labor takes, threats to social reproduction, the impact of indigenous and peasant households on commodity chains, the rapidly expanding arenas of global carework and sex trafficking, and finally, opportunities for worker resistance. This broadly interdisciplinary volume provides conceptual and methodological guides for academics, graduate students, researchers, and activists interested in the gendered nature of commodity chains.

Variation in indigenous forest resource use in central Guyana.

Sustainable forest conservation strategies should be based on local as well as landscape-scale forest resource use data. Using ecological and sociological techniques, we test the hypotheses that (1) forest resource use differs between ethnic and socioeconomic indigenous groups and (2) that this difference results in differing spatial patterns of resource use, with implications for forest diversity and for conservation planning. In the North Rupununi Guyana, three adjacent indigenous communities (differing in their indigenous/immigrant balance) were recorded using 73 animal and 164 plant species (plus several unidentified ethno-species). Farm sites formed important foci for most forest based activities and ex-farm sites supported similar floristic diversity to surrounding forest. Resource usage differences between communities could be attributed to socio-cultural drivers, e.g. mammal meat consumption and the use of the fruits from the palm tree A. maripa were higher in more traditional households. When extracting household construction timber, lower income groups created small scattered felling sites akin to tree fall gaps whereas higher income groups created larger gaps. Lower income (indigenous) households tended to clear larger but more contained sites for farming while mixed or non-Amerindian household tended to clear smaller but more widely dispersed farm sites. These variations resulted in different patterns of forest disturbance originating from agriculture and timber extraction.

Exploring Pre-Colonial Resource Control of Individual Sami Households

In order to understand the use and control of resources by indigenous households and bands, information on territorial division is crucial. However, although indigenous resource use has been quantified in several studies, such information has usually been lacking. A unique map provides this kind of information for the Swedish Sami. Drawn by Jonas Persson Gedda in 1671, before the Swedish state started to interfere with Sami territorial division, it shows the borders of 37 household territories. We have combined the geographical information from Gedda’s map with historical sources and modern land survey data to quantify the resources controlled by each household and relate them to taxation. Three crucial resources are identified: alpine heath together with subalpine birch forest, pine-dominated forests, and fishing waters. Only the fishing resource showed any correlation to taxation, which underlines its importance as the main subsistence mode, at least for the forest Sami. Mountain Sami, who lived primarily on reindeer husbandry, controlled abundant alpine heath and subalpine birch forests that were used as summer pastures, but virtually no pine-dominated forests with winter pastures. The necessary winterpastures were located in the territories of the forest Sami, who controlled extensive pine-dominated forests and who were able to combine reindeer herding and wild reindeer hunting.

Recent Change in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Population and Housing Geographies

AbstractThe intercensal period (2006–2011) was a time of significant policy and population change in Indigenous affairs. The aim of this paper is to document the changing distribution of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population and housing geographies over that period. We use the Indigenous Region structure developed by the Australian Bureau of Statistics to show that Indigenous Australians grew at a rate that significantly outstrips the non‐Indigenous population with an increasing concentration of the Indigenous population on the urban eastern seaboard and particularly among older people. We present results that show that for certain measures, the housing situation of the Indigenous population in 2011 had improved relative to the Indigenous population in 2006. A smaller proportion of Indigenous households were estimated to live in an overcrowded dwelling compared with Indigenous households in 2006. There were also significant increases in the per cent of Indigenous households that owned or were purchasing their own home. Other results might be seen as less positive with community housing (a tenure type identified as having benefits in both qualitative and quantitative analysis) declining in importance. In net terms though, Indigenous households continue to experience a high degree of housing need. Compared with other households, they were 3.7 times as likely to live in an overcrowded dwelling.

Household expenditures on private tutoring: emerging evidence from Malaysia

Private tutoring has been a burgeoning phenomenon in Malaysia for decades. This study examines the determinants of private tutoring expenditures in Malaysia using the 2004/2005 Household Expenditures Survey and applies hurdle regression models to the data. The results indicate that total household expenditures, household head’s level of education, household head’s gender, number of school-age children, and home ownership are important determinants of private tutoring expenditures in Malaysia. In comparison with Malay households, Chinese and Indian households have a higher likelihood of enrolling their children in private tutoring and spending on private tutoring. Indigenous households are less likely to spend for tutoring, but once their children are enrolled, they spend more than their Malay counterparts. Regional characteristics are also important determinants of private tutoring expenditures.

Displacement and Erosion of Informal Risk-Sharing: Evidence from Nepal

Summary Informal networks are essential risk-coping mechanisms for people living in impoverished communities. However, the consequences of displacement on informal institutions have received limited attention. Our study of displaced indigenous households from the Shuklaphanta Wildlife Reserve in Nepal indicates that displacement followed by an inadequate land compensation scheme led to serious household partitions and adversely affected patrilineal kinship relationships. Moreover, poor harvests in the resettled communities and growing conflicts over the control of limited land gradually destroyed the traditional patron–client system that governed permanent agriculture. Overall, the erosion of informal risk-coping mechanisms has created a vicious cycle of poverty.

Aquatic Resource Use by Indigenous Australians in Two Tropical River Catchments: the Fitzroy River and Daly River

Indigenous people of northern Australia make extensive use of wild resources as a source of food, in their art and craft, and for medicinal purposes. These resources are part of a socially and culturally significant landscape. Using data collected from household surveys across two catchments in northern Australia, the Daly River, Northern Territory (NT) and the Fitzroy River, Western Australia (WA), we describe indigenous aquatic resource use patterns. The former is a perennial system with extensive vegetated wetlands that can remain inundated for 4–5 months, while the latter can cease to flow during the winter dry season (May–October) and its floods usually last for weeks. Subsistence strategies depend on seasonal availability of a wide array of aquatic species and are attuned to the life histories and movement patterns of key species, such as Long-necked Turtle (Chelodina rugosa) and Magpie Goose (Anseranas semipalmata). Indigenous households harvested resources from different habitats. Our results show a clear progression from use of the main river channel shortly after the wet season to use of billabongs late in the dry season in the Daly River, and a constant reliance on the main river channel and tributaries in the Fitzroy River. Difference in the main species utilised appears strongly related to habitat use, with four of the five most commonly harvested in the Daly catchment being non-fish species associated with billabong habitats. Commonly harvested species from the Fitzroy catchment included small bodied species used as bait and two popular food species, Black Bream (Hephaestus jenkinsi) and Catfish (Neoarius spp.). Results suggest that indigenous subsistence strategies are vulnerable to changes in the natural systems that provide the “ecosystem goods,” particularly annual inundation of floodplains that drives productivity and provides habitat for some key species. Water resource developments, such as river regulation and increased abstraction for irrigated agriculture, could adversely affect a highly valued customary component of the indigenous economies of tropical Australia.

Longitudinal determinants of mobility: new evidence for Indigenous children and their carers

In this paper, I used data from Wave 1 and Wave 2 of the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children (LSIC) to look at the factors associated with the probability of an Indigenous child and their carer changing usual residence over a (roughly) one-year timespan. A number of new insights emerge from the analysis. First, those carers of Indigenous children who changed usual residence in the year leading up to Wave 1 of the LSIC were more likely to change usual residence again in the year (or so) that followed. Second, the older the carer, the lower the probability of moving, reflecting the lifecourse patterns of mobility. Third, those who lived in mixed Indigenous and non-Indigenous households had higher levels of mobility than those who lived in Indigenous-only households. The fourth main insight was that the characteristics of one’s dwelling seem to be more important factors in explaining population movement than the characteristics of the area in which one lives. Arguably, the most important insight from the paper is the ability of longitudinal data like the LSIC to provide answers to important policy questions.

Preliminary phytochemical analysis of leaf of Garcinia gummigutta from Western Ghats

Preliminary phytochemical analysis of the secondary metabolites in the leaf of Garcinia gummi-gutta collected from various regions of Western Ghats was carried out. The location of these plants was tagged with the longitude and latitude co-ordinates on Google maps using i-touchmaps software on androidphone. G.gummi-gutta plants having broad leaves and narrow leaves were collected from Western Ghat regions of Kodagu, Dakshina Kannada, Uttara Kannada and parts of Kerala. Data on the Ethnobotanical properties of G.gummi-gutta were collected from indigenous people and households practicing medicines for animals and humans in these regions. The presumptive compound bringing out the action in other plants is also reported to understand the correlation. The fluorescent characteristic features of leaf of G.gummigutta in various extracts were conducted under UV light at 366nm. The leaf extracts of both broad and narrow types were prepared with distilled water, methanol, ethanol, acetone, chloroform, di-ethylether, petroleum ether and hexane. Qualitative analysis of phytochemicals in these extract were analysed. The investigation revealed that the leaf of G.gummi- gutta does contain medicinally active phytochemicals. The preliminary qualitative chemical tests showed that leaves collected from Western Ghats regions of Kodagu and Kerala have high content of alkaloids, tannins, phenolic flavonoids, flavonoids, carbohydrates and proteins. This justifies that environmental features do have variation in phytochemical content accumulation in plants. Steroids, terpenoids, phlobatannin and Cardiac glycosides were found in small quantities. Saponins, anthraquinones and anthocyanides were absent. This study provides a location key and scientific detail to investigate the phytochemicals in the leaf of G.gummi-gutta. The type of extraction solvents used in the investigation will help researchers decide on solvent compositions for further work on the above mentioned phytochemicals. The study also justifies the need for further research work on the leaf of Garcinia gummi-gutta.