Status determinants, social incongruity and economic transition: Gender, relative material wealth and heterogeneity in the cultural lifestyle of forager-horticulturalists

Abstract

For small-scale societies, transitions from self-sufficiency to cash-based labor in market economies have been associated with the exacerbation of existing, and the emergence of new, social incongruities. Social incongruity occurs when two or more of a person’s status determinants (e.g. age, gender, wealth) conflict, resulting in reduced social status. A central focus of theory and research on social incongruity is the relationship between the cultural prototype of what is needed to live a good life–or lifestyle–and status determinants. Assessment of status determinants is challenging because of their relative nature at multiple levels of analysis. This study uses theory and methods from cognitive anthropology to investigate whether and how individual knowledge of a cultural lifestyle prototype conflicts with status determinants at two levels of economic transition among 101 adults from a small-scale society of forager-horticulturalists in Bolivian Amazonia, the Tsimane’. Results support cultural consensus in a 38-item model labeled market lifestyle (explaining 72.7% of sample variance). While the model includes both overlapping traditional (e.g. weaving) and market-related (e.g. education) items and behaviors, most market alternatives were rated higher. When market lifestyle was tested for social incongruity against other status determinants, only gender predicted variation. Thematically, when lifestyle was stratified by gender, men rated several items of relational wealth higher than women did. Analysis of model residual agreement revealed heterogeneity in the form of a syncretic lifestyle model (explaining 18.2% of additional variance). Participants whose knowledge better matched syncretic lifestyle rated traditional items and market alternatives closer to parity. Agreement with the syncretic model correlated with lower material wealth and less market integration. In sum, the findings document a modern, market-oriented form of Tsimane’ lifestyle that varies ontologically from past modelling and ethnographic accounts in preferred forms of livelihood and wealth.

Do wealth and inequality associate with health in a small-scale subsistence society?

“…In the Tsimane context, it is unclear whether that will be the case given low residential mobility and concentration of work and socializing within communities. However, Tsimane visit other communities and sporadically engage in market-based interaction with non-Tsimane, and comparisons with wealthier neighbors can contribute to Tsimane status aspirations ( Schultz, 2019 ). Nevertheless, as mentioned above (Study population), we consider the community to be the most relevant arena for status competition among Tsimane (though substituting community-relative wealth with population-relative wealth made little difference; see Supplementary file 1a-1m ).…”

The Social Meaning of Food Consumption Behaviors in Rural Brazil: Agreement and Intracultural Variation

“…Overall, the methods described in this article were able to determine that people in a particular setting do indeed have shared ideas about food-related behaviors that indicate food security or insecurity. In addition, residual agreement analysis—a relatively new method—was able to uncover fine-grained intracultural differences in understandings of FI between generations, even where there was a high degree of sharing in the cultural model (Dressler et al 2015; see also Oths and Dressler 2018; Schultz 2019).…”

Cultural Consensus and Cultural Consonance: Advancing a Cognitive Theory of Culture

“…While there was an overall cultural consensus, in one church there was a stronger emphasis placed on a contemplative religiosity, whereas in the other there was a stronger emphasis on ecstatic religious practices, including glossolalia and religious healing. Schultz (2019) examined a cultural consensus model of material lifestyles among the Tsimane’ of lowland Bolivia, finding that, in the context of an overall consensus on the importance of specific material goods in the Tsimane’ way of life, one subgroup emphasized purely market (or Western) material goods, while the other emphasized a syncretic model of market and traditional material goods.…”