Why Forage?: Hunters and Gatherers in the Twenty-First Century

by Brian F. Codding (Editor), Karen L. Kramer (Editor)

Overview

Foraging persists as a viable economic strategy both in remote regions and within the bounds of developed nation-states. Given the economic alternatives available, why do some groups choose to maintain their hunting and gathering lifeways? Through a series of detailed case studies, the contributors to this volume examine the decisions made by modern-day foragers to sustain a predominantly hunting and gathering way of life. What becomes clear is that hunter-gatherers continue to forage because the economic benefits of doing so are high relative to the local alternatives and, perhaps more importantly, because the social costs of not foraging are prohibitive; in other words, hunter-gatherers value the social networks built through foraging and sharing more than the potential marginal gains of a new mode of subsistence. Why Forage? shows that hunting and gathering continues to be a viable and vibrant way of life even in the twenty-first century.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780826356963
Publisher:	University of New Mexico Press Published in Association with School for Advanced Research Press
Publication date:	06/15/2016
Series:	School for Advanced Research Advanced Seminar Series
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Brian F. Codding is an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Utah. He has published more than thirty peer-reviewed papers on the ecology of hunter-gatherers.

Karen L. Kramer is an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Utah and the author of Maya Children: Helpers at the Farm.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations vii

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction: Hunters and Gatherers in the Twenty-First Century Karen L. Kramer Brian F. Codding 1

Chapter 1 Diversify or Replace: What Happens to Wild Foods When Cultigens Are Introduced into Hunter-Gatherer Diets? Karen L. Kramer Russell D. Greaves 15

Chapter 2 Inuit Culture: To Have and Have Not; or, Has Subsistence Become an Anachronism? George W. Wenzel 43

Chapter 3 "In the bush the food is free": The Ju/'hoansi of Tsumkwe in the Twenty-First Century Richard B. Lee 61

Chapter 4 Twenty-First-Century Hunting and Gathering among Western and Central Kalahari San Robert K. Hitchcock Maria Sapignoli 89

Chapter 5 Why Do So Few Hadza Farm? Nicholas Blurton Jones 113

Chapter 6 In Pursuit of the Individual: Recent Economic Opportunities and the Persistence of Traditional Forager-Farmer Relationships in the Southwestern Central African Republic Karen D. Lupo 137

Chapter 7 What Now? Big Game Hunting, Economic Change, and the Social Strategies of Bardi Men James E. Coxworth 167

Chapter 8 Alternative Aboriginal Economies: Martu Livelihoods in the Twenty-First Century Brian F. Codding Rebecca Bliege Bird Douglas W. Bird David W. Zeanah 185

Chapter 9 Economic, Social, and Ecological Contexts of Hunting, Sharing, and Fire in the Western Desert of Australia Rebecca Bliege Bird Brian F. Codding Douglas W. Bird 213

Appendix A Cross-Cultural Demographic and Social Variables for Contemporary Foraging Populations 231

Appendix B Economic Activities of Twenty-First-Century Foraging Populations 241

References 263

Contributors 321

Index 325