Use of Network Centrality Measures to Explain Individual Levels of Herbal Remedy Cultural Competence among the Yucatec Maya in Tabi, Mexico

Abstract

Common herbal remedy knowledge varies and is transmitted among individuals who are connected through a social network. Thus, social relationships have the potential to account for some of the variation in knowledge. Cultural consensus analysis (CCA) and social network analysis (SNA) were used together to study the association between intracultural variation in botanical remedy knowledge and social relationships in Tabi, Yucatan, Mexico. CCA, a theory of culture as agreement, was used to assess the competence of individuals in a domain of herbal remedies by measuring individual competence scores within that domain. There was a weak but positive association between these competence scores and network centrality scores. This association disappeared when age was included in the model. People in Tabi, who have higher competence in herbal remedies tend to be older and more centrally located in the herbal remedy inquiry network. The larger implication of the application of CCA and SNA for understanding the acquisition and transmission of cultural knowledge is also explored.

Distribution of Herbal Remedy Knowledge in Tabi, Yucatan, Mexico

“…Weller and Romney 1988). As reported in more detail in Hopkins (2011), the free list method consisted of asking 30 women and 10 men of varying ages from different households to list all the herbal remedies they knew. We asked about herbal remedies, instead of the more commonly used medicinal plants, because participants preferred to report the plants and the illnesses they were used to treat as one entity.…”

Bayesian Cultural Consensus Theory

“…The basic and still widely used (recent examples are Hopkins, 2011 andMiller, 2011) version of this model provides us with estimates of the informants' cultural competence (level of cultural knowledge) as well as with the culturally correct (consensus) answers. The standard CCT model is based on a formal mathematical model from signal detection theory (Macmillan & Creelman, 2005) that takes into account the possibility of a guessing mechanism as well.…”

Local knowledge production, transmission, and the importance of village leaders in a network of Tibetan pastoralists coping with environmental change

“…Local ecological knowledge is acquired through personal observations and experiences, but it is also transmitted through social networks, including learning from elders (Reyes-García et al 2009), participation in natural resource management institutions (Fernández-Giménez 2000), and discussion with peers (Baival and Fernández-Giménez 2012). Variation in individuals' LEK is therefore explained not only by their livelihood practices and personal characteristics Bodin 2006, Klein et al 2014), but also by their ability to access information through their relationships to others (Atran et al 2002, Hopkins 2011, Isaac et al 2014). …”