Indians, Markets, and Rainforests: Theoretical, Comparative, and Quantitative Explorations in the Neotropics

by Ricardo Godoy

Overview

This book addresses two important and related questions: does participation in a market economy help or hurt indigenous peoples and how does it affect the conservation of tropical rainforest flora and fauna? Oddly, there have been few quantitative studies that have addressed these issues.

Ricardo Godoy's research takes an important step toward rectifying this oversight by investigating five different lowland Amerindian societies of tropical Latin America—all of which are experiencing deep changes as they modernize. Godoy examines the effect of markets on a broad range of areas including health, conservation of flora and fauna, leisure, folk knowledge, reciprocity, and private time preference. He concludes that, contrary to considerable anthropological theory, the effect of markets on the quality of life and the rainforest are often unclear or benign. Godoy uses multivariate techniques to examine the changes modernization has had on many indicators of the quality of life and the environment and concludes that the seeds of socioeconomic differentiation may already lie dormant in simple economies.

The impact of modernization on lowland Amerindians is a topic of great concern to anthropologists, researchers, and policymakers in developing nations, and this book is a significant contribution to the debate about the likely future of indigenous people.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231505031
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	08/01/2001
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	352
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Ricardo A. Godoy is a visiting professor in the Sustainable International Development Program, Heller Graduate School, and research associate in the Department of Anthropology at Brandeis University. He is the author of Small-Scale Mining and Agriculture in Highland Bolivia.

Table of Contents

Part 1. The Question, the Research Design, and the People
1. The Question and Its Significance
2. Comparing Approaches
3. Research Design
4. Ethnographic Sketches
Part 2. The Findings
5. Forest Clearance: Income, Technology, and Private Time Preference
6. Game Consumption, Income, and Prices: Empirical Estimates and Implications for Conservation
7. Chayanov and Netting: What Does Demography Matter?
8. Chayanov and Sahlins on Work and Leisure
9. Human Health: Does It Worsen with markets?
10. Mishaps, Savings, and Reciprocity
11. Trade and Cognition: On the Growth and Loss of Knowledge
12. Time Preference, Markets, and the Evolution of Social Inequality
Part 3. What We Have Learned
13. Conclusions

Editorial Reviews

Based on fieldwork in 65 Amerindian villages from 1992-98, this analysis probes the effects of economic development on the welfare of lowland indigenous people and the conservation of Latin American rain forests. After comparing study approaches by development economists, political economists, and anthropologists, Godoy (apparently an anthropologist at Harvard U.) discusses his cross-cultural, multivariate method drawing on Gross's culturist hypothesis and the Ricardian model of trade. He assesses the not always linear links between markets and inequality, social solidarity, and environmental degradation; and their policy implications. Appends the test administered of folk knowledge of flora and fauna. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

With very few quantitative studies addressing the question, the author explores issues of participation in a market economy and its benefits or harm to the conservation of tropical rainforest flora and fauna, and the direct impacts on indigenous peoples of those areas... Provides an insightful overview.

Southeastern Naturalist

[T]he book is a fantastic collection of information and ideas. It should be obligatory reading for the staff of all development and conservation governmental organizations and NGOs working in lowland South America.

Journal of Anthropological Research - Kim Hill

[T]he book is a fantastic collection of information and ideas. It should be obligatory reading for the staff of all development and conservation governmental organizations and NGOs working in lowland South America.

— Kim Hill, University of New Mexico

Journal of Anthropological Research