Publication Date

6-14-1977

Abstract

Field research was conducted in an isolated Miskito Indian village on the east coast of Nicaragua.

The research presented here is based on the general proposition that a productive way of monitoring and understanding the impact and interrelationships of economics and subsistence is through examining the nutritional process. Economic change involving the sole of a traditional subsistence resource for cash is a particular example of a brooder phenomenon which occurs in many developing areas. Consideration of the larger problem may be phrased: the nutritionaI process may be negatively related to economic change. This negative relationship between nutrition and economics involves a consideration of the dynamics of the human system being studied. Economic change may drastically affect both the subsistence base and the dietary regime. A generaI result of this negative association between the nutritionaI process and economic change is a complex systemic imbalance. This is the coastal Miskito situation.

To demonstrate the genera I proposition, and to accomplish other specific research objectives, the following information is presented and analyzed: 1)descriptive environmental information; 2) the sociocultural context and orienta­tion of the village economy; 3) a description of subsistence strategies and a discussion of the competitive articulation of cash-acquisition and traditional subsistence patterns; and 4) detailed food-consumption data from a village perspective, including a determination of current reliance on foods from various subsistence strategies. The noncomplementary relationship of the Miskito purchasing strategy with the traditionaI subsistence system "threatens" the nutritionaI security of the coastal Miskito. Preceding descriptive analysis provides the specific context for the discussion of dee lining nutritionaI security.

For purposes of the genera I mode I presented here, nutritionaI security is defined as the maintenance of a stable intake of nutrients compatible with the physical, psychological, and sociocultural viability of the group. It is contended that this concept has greater utility than nutritional status. This conceptual per­spective focuses on culturaI systems in terms of their responses to nutritionaI situations and permits consideration of ecological factors relevant to nutrition by directing attention to critical food resources. This study utilizes nutritional security to generate six hypotheses concerning the nutritional process and trajectory of the study population. This nutritionaI process is considered an important aspect of cultural systems which has not received much attention from anthropologists.

The Miskito are at a criticaI point on their nutritionaI trajectory which has important implications for the direction and fate of their general evolutionary trajectory. The prospect is for major systemic change. Prediction of the future state and fate of the human system must be based on knowledge of present processes and the current system state. FocaI to such knowledge is nutrition.

Document Type

Dissertation

Language

English

Degree Name

Anthropology

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Department Name

Anthropology

First Committee Member (Chair)

Karl H. Schwerin

Second Committee Member

Patricia Draper

Third Committee Member

James Norman Spuhler

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