Persistent Hunger: Perspectives on Vulnerability, Famine, and Food Security in Sub-Saharan Africa

ANRV287-AN35-26 ARI 13 August 2006 11:43

Persistent Hunger:Perspectives onVulnerability, Famine,and Food Security inSub-Saharan AfricaMamadou Baro and Tara F. DeubelDepartment of Anthropology, and the Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology,University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721; email: [email protected],[email protected]

Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 2006. 35:521–38

The Annual Review of Anthropology isonline at anthro.annualreviews.org

This article’s doi:10.1146/annurev.anthro.35.081705.123224

Copyright c© 2006 by Annual Reviews.All rights reserved

0084-6570/06/1021-0521$20.00

Key Words

malnutrition, poverty, natural disasters, conflicts, Sahel, politicalinequalities

AbstractThis review examines the persistence of chronic hunger in Sub-Saharan Africa in the twenty-first century and reviews dominantfamine theories, concepts of vulnerability, and household livelihoodsecurity and responses to recent food crises in the region. The au-thors argue that famine occurrences are linked to historical and con-temporary socioeconomic processes that have increased over timethe vulnerability of African households to hunger and reduced theirresilience to environmental and economic shocks, political conflict,and the rapid spread of HIV/AIDS. Approaches to famine need tomove away from the “emergency relief ” framework to better addressthe underlying conditions that make food shortages endemic. Futurefood security for Africa requires an integrated long-term responseto household vulnerability on the part of African governments, civilsociety, and international partners by incorporating new technolo-gies, local expertise, and active involvement of African communitiesliving with the realities of recurrent famine.

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INTRODUCTION

Famines and food shortages have recurredthroughout human history owing to a vari-ety of interrelated causes, including environ-mental crises and natural disasters, economic,social, and political inequalities, and violentconflicts. In the twenty-first century, however,the percentage of the world’s population fac-ing acute and chronic hunger is decreasing onevery continent except Africa (Brown 2001).Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region of theworld in which chronic food insecurity andthreats of famine remain endemic for most ofthe population and the number of malnour-ished people is steadily increasing (Devereux& Maxwell 2001, Rukuni 2002). By 2010, anestimated 32% of Sub-Saharan Africa’s to-tal population of 400–500 million will suf-fer from malnutrition, compared with 4%–12% in other developing countries (Steyn &Walker 2000). Improving food security thusremains a central concern for African devel-opment and requires concerted effort on thepart of African governments and internationaldonors.

Although the imperative is clear to bet-ter address Sub-Saharan Africa’s ongoing foodcrises, the international community and re-gional governments still lack consensus onhow to define and respond to famine ad-equately. Drawing on multidisciplinary ap-proaches, this chapter reviews dominant the-ories and conceptual frameworks for the studyof vulnerability, food security, and faminein Sub-Saharan Africa; lessons learned fromhunger prevention and relief programs; andperspectives on the future of hunger inthe region, especially in the context of theHIV/AIDS pandemic’s increasingly delete-rious impacts. We demonstrate that Sub-Saharan Africans are not passive, powerlessvictims of famine and food insecurity. Weargue that famines and food shortages arelinked to persistent vulnerabilities, which areoften the result of historical and contempo-rary processes that limit the options and op-portunities of households.

A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORKFOR FAMINE, FOOD SECURITY,AND VULNERABILITY

In their discussion of famine in Ethiopia,Webb & von Braun (1994) define famine as“a catastrophic disruption of society as man-ifested in a cumulative failure of produc-tion, distribution and consumption systems”(p. 35). The principal consequences of famineare a concentrated decline of food consump-tion resulting in chronic weight losses for in-dividuals and sharp increases in excess mortal-ity, massive social disruption, and long-termresource depletion. Although famine has longbeen considered a discrete event triggered byexternal causes and amenable to technical so-lutions, researchers and scholars have recentlychallenged this view, arguing that famine mustbe understood as a long-term socioeconomicprocess that accelerates destitution of a so-ciety’s most vulnerable groups to the pointwhere their livelihood systems become unten-able (Walker 1989, p. 6).

The negative effects of famine in Sub-Saharan Africa have been magnified by an up-surge of complex emergency situations rootedin structural vulnerabilities that limit equi-table access to resources (Vogel & Smith2002). High death tolls from famines are in-creasingly correlated with the presence ofviolent conflicts and the concentration ofpopulations in refugee camps where dis-ease epidemics are a common cause of mor-tality (de Waal 1998). Over the past twodecades, 28 African countries have experi-enced violent conflicts along with their de-bilitating effects on livelihoods, food produc-tion, and access (Devereux & Maxwell 2001).1

Table 1 presents an overview of selectedAfrican famines during the twentieth centuryand their primary causes, of which nearly halfinvolve conflict situations.

1In a study of 38 countries that experienced conflicts be-tween 1961 and 2000, Teodosijevic (2003) determined thatper capita agricultural and food production are 10% lowerduring a conflict and in the 5 years following it than in the5 years prior to the conflict (Pingali et al. 2005).

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Table 1 Selected twentieth-century African famines. Source: Devereux & Maxwell 2001, p. 118

Location Years Causal triggers Estimated mortalityNigeria (Hausaland) 1902–1908 Drought 5000Tanzania (south) 1906–1907 Conflict 37,500West Africa (Sahel) 1913–1914 Drought 125,000Tanzania (central) 1917–1919 Conflict and drought 30,000Zimbabwe 1922 Drought 47Tanzania 1929 Drought 500Rwanda 1943–1944 Conflict and drought 300,000Malawi (Nyasaland) 1949 Drought 200Ethiopia (Tigray) 1957–1958 Drought and locusts 250,000Ethiopia (Wollo) 1966 Drought 50,000Nigeria (Biafra) 1968–1970 Conflict 1,000,000West Africa (Sahel) 1969–1974 Drought 101,000Ethiopia (Tigray and Wollo) 1972–1974 Drought 350,000Somalia 1974–1975 Drought 20,000Uganda (Karamoja) 1980–1981 Conflict and drought 30,000Mozambique 1982–1985 Conflict and drought 100,000Ethiopia 1983–1985 Drought 800,000Sudan (Darfur, Kordofan) 1984–1985 Conflict 250,000Sudan (south) 1988 Conflict 250,000Somalia 1991–1993 Conflict and drought 400,000Sudan (Bahr el Ghazal) 1998 Conflict and drought 70,000

Review of Famine Theories

Theories of famine have shifted from anemphasis on environmental and demographiccauses to economic and sociopolitical causes.Early work on famine was heavily influencedby Malthus who proposed that faminefollowed excessive population growth andserved to keep carrying capacity in check byreducing populations to a level consistentwith food production. Contrary to Malthus’spredictions, however, famines have notlimited population growth to any significantextent over history (Devereux 2001 a,b).Largely because of Malthus’s influence, “thecriterion of famine became a measurableincrease in the death rate of an aggregationof individuals, diagnosed by medical profes-sionals as being due to starvation and causallyrelated to a measurable decrease in the avail-ability of food” (de Waal 1989, pp. 17–18).This emphasis on famine as a “technicalmalfunction” requiring the intervention ofexperts (e.g., demographers, medical special-

ists, and agronomists or economists) has longdominated the field and obscured the socialprocesses underlying food crises. The as-sumed linkage among famine, starvation, andmass mortality in both popular conceptionsand technical definitions stems directly fromthe debate started by Malthus more than twocenturies ago. Yet as more nuanced analyseshave recently demonstrated, famine can occurin varying degrees of severity well beforecritical food shortages become evident. Forexample, villagers in Sudan distinguish a“famine that kills” from a range of otherfood crises experienced at the householdlevel that may cause hunger and destitutionbut not necessarily lead to death (de Waal2004).

SEN’S ENTITLEMENTAPPROACH

The groundbreaking work of Amartya Senin Poverty and Famines (1981) introduced anew paradigm in famine studies by rejecting

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FAD: foodavailability decline

Malthusian notions of food availability decline(FAD) per head and insisting on the salienceof market forces and the role of the state indetermining individual entitlements to food.According to Sen, starvation occurs when aperson does not have access to enough food,often despite the availability of food for thosewho can afford it. Famines invariably affectpopulations in different ways depending ona household’s ability to acquire food duringcrisis times. For instance, at the height ofthe 1972–1974 famine in Ethiopia, there wasno significant reduction in overall food out-put, and people succumbed to starvation whilefood prices remained fairly stable. Similarly,during the Sahel famine of the mid-1970s,a survey by the Food and Agricultural Or-ganization determined that the most-affectedcountries—Mali, Mauritania, and Niger—allproduced enough grain even during the worstyear (1973) to feed their populations, if thegrain had been equally distributed.

In Sen’s (1989, 1999) framework, vulnera-bility to famine is directly related to a house-hold’s level of entitlements. He defines enti-tlements as “a key set of alternative commod-ity bundles that a person can command in so-ciety using the totality of rights and opportu-nities that he or she faces” (p. 8). Entitlementrelations are based on four different types ofownership: production, trade, labor, and in-heritance or transfer. Through a combinationof these means, individuals gain access to fooddirectly or to the ability to acquire (purchase)it indirectly. Market functioning is central to ahousehold’s ability to access food, and starva-tion can occur even when food is readily avail-able at local markets if a household lacks theappropriate entitlements. Famine is thus char-acterized by a collapse of entitlements for cer-tain segments of society and the failure of thestate to protect those entitlements. Sen’s the-oretical contributions revolutionized faminepolicy by shifting the debate from issues ofavailability to emphasizing the ability of in-dividuals to obtain access to and control overfood resources (Webb & von Braun 1994).

REVISING SEN: FAMINE AS APOLITICALLY DRIVEN PROCESS

Although Sen’s work remains central infamine research and development studiesmore generally, several critics have cogentlyargued that Sen’s overemphasis on economicmarket-based causation neglects the salienceof politics, historical processes, and socialdisruption in creating conditions of vulner-ability and famine (de Waal 1990, Duffield1998, Edkins 2001, Hendrie 1997, Keen 1994,Rangasami 1985). In Sen’s analysis, marketforces replaced previous nonhuman actors(i.e., supernatural or natural explanations thatconsidered famine an act of God or nature)and defined famine as an economic rather thana natural disaster (Keen 1994). Further shift-ing the focus of the debate, we should nowexamine the role of political agency in pro-voking and sustaining acute and chronic foodinsecurity, especially among disenfranchisedand war-torn populations involved in complexhumanitarian emergencies.2

In his reassessment of Sen’s entitlementtheory, de Waal (1990) points out that Senfails to explain two central phenomena wit-nessed in famines: (a) Many people choose notto consume food rather than sell their vital as-sets, and (b) most famine mortality is causedby the outbreak of disease and widespreadepidemics rather than simple undernutrition.In de Waal’s integrated model of famine, anatural disaster or economic crisis precipi-tates famine, causing a loss of entitlementsto staple foods and a threat to long-term so-cioeconomic stability. In this situation, peo-ple resort to a variety of coping strategiesfor temporary solutions, but the strategies of-ten lead to impoverishment and social dis-ruption. When coping strategies completelybreak down, social collapse ensues and results

2A humanitarian emergency is defined as “a situation af-fecting large civilian populations and usually involving acombination of conflict, food insecurities, and populationdisplacement resulting in significant excess mortality ormorbidity” (Kaiser et al. 2003, p. 129).

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in health crises and excess mortality. Socialcollapse at this level is usually accompaniedby violence, which renders food and medicalrelief less effective and quickly turns entitle-ment loss into destitution. In de Waal’s view,famine is not limited to the standard notionof mass starvation unto death, but can also beconsidered “a more virulent form of povertythat leads to death” (p. 486).

Keen’s (1994) case study of famine and re-lief efforts in southwest Sudan, one of thefirst to incorporate a theoretical conception ofpower into famine analyses, urges that faminebe approached with a critical eye toward thosewho benefit from its misfortune. He assertsthat famine does not merely reflect a failureof markets or policy; it is an indicator of suc-cess for particular groups of local, national,and international actors, especially in arenasof violent conflict and war, such as Sudan.Yet “famine discourse” tends to focus exclu-sively on the plight of the victims, ignoringthe motives of its instigators and beneficiariesand what they gain by fostering and maintain-ing long-term famine conditions. Endorsinga liberal conception of the state as a protec-tor of the public interest, Sen (1989) insistson the role of public policy in protecting enti-tlements. However, Keen counter-argues thatstates and powerful groups may actively pro-mote famine and obstruct relief, especiallywhen obstruction becomes a military strategyand weapon of war.

Drawing on a Foucaultian notion ofthe knowledge-power in discourse, Hendrie(1997) argues that the common discursive rep-resentation of famine as a “disaster event” ef-faces culpability and detaches the occurrenceof famine “from its embeddedness within aset of historically specific and locally basedeconomic and political processes” (p. 63).She closely examines how power is exercisedin the context of international relief opera-tions using a case study of refugees in Tigray,Ethiopia, who migrated to eastern Sudan inlate 1984 following famine there. The rangeof technologies used to measure and con-trol famine situations includes anthropomet-

ric measurements, early warning indicators,and the creation of universalized “vulnerablegroups” who lose their individual identities tohomogenization. Using Foucault’s example ofthe institutionalization of madness, Hendrienotes that famine has been removed from theeveryday social sphere and relocated into anexpert realm of regulation and control thatare exerted by powerful humanitarian insti-tutions. Her work highlights the need to in-corporate local discourses on famine in scien-tific research to understand better the partic-ular contexts in which famines occur and toimprove the planning and on-the-ground im-plementation of hunger relief programs. Thisneed is significant because insiders’ and out-siders’ perceptions often differ significantly;insiders view famine as a problem of povertyand an intensification of ongoing processesrather than as an unusual or extraordinarycircumstance.

Taking a more radical stance, Edkins(2001) advocates replacing the term faminewith “mass starvation” in an effort to assignresponsibility and demand accountability forthe occurrence of famine, while linking it dis-cursively with the genocides and mass killings.Edkins argues the dominant framework thatregards famine as a failure that can be re-dressed by scientific or technical solutionslimits many of the present ways of definingand theorizing famine. In her view, more em-phasis should be placed on assigning respon-sibility for the persistence of hunger.

Defining Food Security

Large-scale problems of famine in Sub-Saharan Africa cannot be addressed withoutfirst improving the underlying food securitystatus of populations at the national, regional,and household levels (Park et al. 1993). Theearliest definition of food security emergedfrom the World Food Conference of 1975 andfocused on “the availability at all times of ad-equate world supplies of basic foodstuffs tosustain a steady expansion of food consump-tion” (Maxwell & Watkins 2003). By 1986 this


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had shifted to an emphasis on food access, asshown by the World Bank’s definition of foodsecurity as “access by all people at all times tothe food required for them to lead a healthyand productive life” (von Braun et al. 1999,p. 34). The four key elements that jointlycomprise food security are the availability offood resources, access to those resources, suf-ficient consumption of food, and appropriateutilization in a sanitary and nutritious manner(Hussein 2002). Without all four elements,food security cannot be assured.

Food insecurity thus has multiple causes,and it is rooted in “combinations of po-litical instability, environmental marginalityand economic powerlessness” (Vogel & Smith2002, p. 316). It is no longer viewed as theresult of agriculture’s failure to produce suf-ficient food, but rather as the consequence ofthe failure of livelihood systems to guaranteeaccess to sufficient food at the household level(Devereux & Maxwell 2001). Food insecuritymay occur as an acute or chronic problem, en-during for varying time periods and differingin degrees of severity. A population sufferingfrom chronic food insecurity is more vulner-able to full-blown famine, and small fluctua-tions can lead to emergencies (Herdt 2004).Factors such as volatile price swings, limitedgovernment capacity to provide food and agri-cultural support, and the politicization of landownership create conditions in which peoplehave little resistance to disruptions of normalactivities by drought, poor harvests, economiccrises, and price inflation that may quickly cre-ate conditions for famine.

Because food insecurity is a multidimen-sional phenomenon, it is difficult to mea-sure, and measurement requires examina-tion of a combination of related indicators(Frankenberger & Coyle 1993). Some of theproxy indicators commonly used in food secu-rity assessments include agricultural produc-tion, livestock holdings, landholdings, mul-tiple income sources that typically generatevaried amounts of income, daily food con-sumption in terms of quantity and diversity,local food prices, anthropometric measure-

ments of children under five (to assess wast-ing and stunting), and the degree to whichhouseholds rely on coping strategies, such aswild plant consumption, seasonal migrationand wage labor, and asset liquidation.

Several major shifts in food security stud-ies and policies have occurred since the 1970s.First, the unit of analysis has moved from theglobal/national level to the local/householdlevel. Second, the scope of analysis has shiftedfrom a “food first” approach to an empha-sis on the performance and sustainability ofhousehold livelihoods. Third, subjective per-ceptions of food security among local pop-ulations now complement objectively mea-surable indicators of food security (Devereux& Maxwell 2001). By combining quantita-tive and qualitative indicators, food securitystudies have thus improved in accuracy andvalidity. For example, food security assess-ments have begun to rely on local knowl-edge of household vulnerability by askinglocal populations to rank the vulnerability sta-tus of individual households and communities(Woodson 1997).

Participation by individuals, transparencyin the management of resources, and vulner-ability reduction must figure among the pri-mary goals to fight against famine and hungerin Sub-Saharan Africa.

INCORPORATINGVULNERABILITY AND THEHOUSEHOLD LIVELIHOODSECURITY FRAMEWORK

In terms of chronic poverty and vulnerability,Africa remains the world’s most disadvantagedcontinent. The 2000–2001 World Develop-ment Report states that nearly half (40%)of the total Sub-Saharan population of ∼500million people lives below the internationalpoverty line of one dollar per day (Devereux& Maxwell 2001). By 2020 the population isprojected to increase by 70%, accompaniedby a 30% rise in child malnutrition (Pinstrup-Andersen et al. 1999). The gross nationalproduct has fallen ∼1% annually in the past

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two decades across the continent (Gaile &Ferguson 1996), and Africa’s share of worldagricultural exports has decreased from 10%to 4% since 1960 (Devereux & Maxwell 2001).

While the broad term vulnerability hasbeen often used to mean vulnerability topoverty or risk, it has sometimes been treatedas a cause and/or symptom of poverty. Vul-nerability frameworks arose from the realiza-tion that the underlying vulnerability statusof a population is a more important deter-minant of the extent and duration of a cri-sis than the discrete environmental hazardsthat may trigger the crisis (Prowse 2003). Forinstance, the relationship between droughtand famine is strongest in places where theresource base is poor, poverty is endemic,and public capacity for prevention is weak.Although coordinated, rapid government in-tervention prevented drought from leadingto famine in Zimbabwe, countries such asSudan and Ethiopia are highly susceptibleto drought-induced famine owing to politicaland economic systems weakened by repeatedcrises over time (von Braun et al. 1999).

In the Sahel, persistent vulnerability char-acterizes the relationship of the populationto a continuous record of droughts and foodshortages (Finan & Langworthy 1997). Sim-plistic portrayals of food shortages and hungerin the Sahel do little to reveal the underly-ing causes of a crisis. Famines and droughtsin that region of Africa can be viewed withina framework of structural vulnerability de-fined as a function of exposure to stress andthe limited ability to recover from negativeimpacts. The multidimensionality of vulnera-bility requires not only a focus on environ-mental factors such as limited rainfall, butalso a consideration of social inequalities (e.g.,power differences among classes and ethnicgroups) and struggles over land and other nat-ural resources (Blaikie 1985). Vulnerability is asocially constructed phenomenon influencedby institutional and environmental dynamics.An adequate vulnerability framework not onlyprovides an understanding of the current crisis

GIS: geographicinformation systems

situation, but also allows an analysis of futurerisk scenarios (Nelson 2005).

Although the concept of vulnerability is apowerful one, it must be made useful for pol-icy makers. This idea implies that local vari-ations in vulnerability must be presented topolicy makers in a comprehensible and func-tional manner.

Vulnerability can be analyzed on variouslevels, including individual, community, re-gional, and national levels. It can be furtherseparated into external factors that comprisethe particular risks and shocks experiencedby a population and the internal aspects thatrelate to a population’s increasing inabilityto cope with those shocks (Chambers 1989).During the 1990s vulnerability analysis be-came a domain of expertise in its own rightwith the rise of vulnerability assessment stud-ies and mapping. Vulnerability mapping uses ageographic information systems (GIS) frame-work for organizing data layers that includessecondary data on water sources, rainfall, andbasic physical and social infrastructure. Withthis basic data set, the framework uses a com-munity sampling process and a participatoryresearch approach to involve local populationsin the actual definition and mapping of theirown vulnerability (Nelson 2005).

The main gaps that still need to be ad-dressed in vulnerability studies include themultiple scales of analysis that create prob-lems in aggregating data, the absence of objec-tive criteria against which to compare a zerostate of no vulnerability, and the complicatednature of dynamic systems that involve differ-ent combinations of variables over time andspace (Webb & Harinarayan 1999). Vulnera-bility mapping tends to be descriptive. It is im-portant to add an analysis of causality withinthe framework.

A household’s capacity to absorb and re-cover from famines (or other shocks) can beanalyzed instructively from a livelihood per-spective (Ellis & Mdoe 2003). Livelihoods arethe means by which the household as a unitand its individual members make a living and


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HHLS: HouseholdLivelihood Security

pursue their goals. They encompass the ex-isting capabilities and assets as well as thesustainability types of socioeconomic activi-ties pursued (Chambers & Conway 1992, Ellis2000). Households and livelihoods representthe private dimension of vulnerability. Ideally,households operate in ways that minimize riskand that increase the ability to manage nega-tive shocks (Nelson 2005).

The Household Livelihood SecurityApproach

The Household Livelihood Security (HHLS)framework grew out of a food security per-spective but is based on the observationthat food is not the only basic need. Otherneeds such as political participation, edu-cation, shelter, and meeting social obliga-tions are as important as food. A livelihood“comprises the capabilities, assets (stores, re-sources, claims, and access) and activities re-quired for a means of living; a livelihood thatis sustainable can cope with and recover fromstress and shocks, maintain or enhance its ca-pabilities and assets, and provide sustainablelivelihood opportunities for the next genera-tion” (Frankenberger 2003).

Household livelihood security, then, refersto adequate and sustainable access to incomeand resources to meet basic needs (includingfood, potable water, health facilities, educa-tional opportunities, housing, involvement inpolicymaking, and time for community par-ticipation and social integration). Livelihoodsinclude a range of on-farm and off-farm activi-ties that together provide a variety of procure-ment strategies to make a living. Thus, eachhousehold can have several possible sources ofentitlement, which constitute its livelihood.These entitlements are based on the house-hold’s endowments and its position in thelegal, political, and social fabric of society.The risk of livelihood failure determines thelevel of vulnerability of a household to in-come, food, health, and nutritional insecurity.The greater the share of resources devotedto the acquisition of food and health service,

the higher the vulnerability of the householdto food and nutritional insecurity. Therefore,livelihoods are secure when households havesecure ownership of, or access to, resources(both tangible and intangible) and income-earning activities, including reserves and as-sets, to offset risks, ease shocks, and meetcontingencies. Households have secure liveli-hoods when they can acquire, protect, de-velop, utilize, exchange, and benefit from as-sets and resources (Frankenberger 2003).

Two major challenges of incorporatingHHLS into food security analysis are in-tegrating local livelihoods data into centraldatabases at the national level and financingthe costs of scaling up the methods employedat the local level (Hussein 2002).

HOUSEHOLD COPINGSTRATEGIES

In the 1980s several scholars began lookingsystematically at the range of coping strate-gies employed by African households in foodcrisis periods (Corbett 1988, de Waal 1989,Rahmato 1991, Watts 1983). Normally, cop-ing strategies differ from everyday livelihoodstrategies; however, in regions that face re-peated shocks, coping strategies may cometo be integrated into the routine set of dailylivelihood activities. As coping strategies areblended with “normal” activities, people be-come more sensitive to shocks and less re-silient (Davies 1993). Roncoli et al. (2001)point out that although coping strategies mayserve the short-term purpose of responding toa crisis, the same strategies may require sub-stantial trade-offs, increase risk, and constrainlong-term responses and adaptation.

One of the underlying assumptions inearlier famine studies was that householdswould react to crises by seeking first to en-sure food consumption. Studies conductedin Sudan, Nigeria, and Burkina Faso, amongother countries, revealed that although cop-ing strategies vary according to context, sev-eral common trends emerge across rural vil-lages of Sub-Saharan Africa, and households

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confronted by risks to their food entitlementsseek to minimize long-term impacts in similarways. In his detailed ethnographic study of theeffects of the 1973–1974 famine in northernNigeria, Watts (1983) noted that householdstend to hold onto key assets as long as possibleand do not resort to mass migration until allother options have been exhausted. In times ofcrisis, households often prioritize safeguard-ing their present assets or purchasing newones instead of acting to maintain or increaselevels of food consumption (Corbett 1988).For example, during the 1984–1985 famine inDarfur, Sudan, people spent as little as 10%of their incomes on food, utilizing most oftheir money instead to preserve household as-sets (de Waal 1990). Furthermore, when assetsmust be disposed of, there is an observed hier-archy in which assets that take the form of self-insurance (e.g., jewelry) are liquidated well be-fore productive assets (e.g., livestock, land, ortools). Accordingly, the sale of productive as-sets can be considered a clear distress signalthat indicates a lack of other options.

The stages of coping strategies beginwith insurance mechanisms, followed by thedisposal of productive assets, and finally,destitution, usually accompanied by forcedmigration (Corbett 1988). Rationing foodconsumption is a common response that startswell before disposal of key assets. Rising levelsof malnutrition should thus be interpreted notas failure of strategies adopted but as one oftheir costs. “Famines and food crises may beseen by household decision makers primarilyas a threat to the long-term economic securityof the households, rather than simply in termsof an increased risk of malnutrition, diseaseor mortality” (p. 1108). In this view, famineconditions are created when a majority ofhouseholds are forced to prioritize the main-tenance of current food consumption levelsover their future capacity to ensure incomegeneration.

Inter-household transfers and loans in-crease in the early stages of response to foodshortages. Because coping strategies follow adistinct pattern, the timing of relief plays a

critical role in determining the effectivenessof these strategies.

Niger’s 2004–2005 Food Crisis

Images of malnourished Nigerien childrentelevised around the world in 2005 caught theinternational community’s attention. How-ever, a careful examination of the historicalrecord suggests that the food crisis experi-enced in Niger in 2005 was not a transitoryemergency but a permanent feature of mount-ing vulnerability. Growing population pres-sures, land degradation, climate change, re-duced income-generating opportunities, anda complexity of other factors, including thelow status of women, are working togetherto make Niger the poorest country in theworld. Chronic malnutrition levels of 40%are recorded in many areas of Niger, and itis estimated that 40% of the rural populationcannot satisfy its minimal calorie intake re-quirements. Food production and arable landper capita are declining. Niger is becomingincreasingly dependent on food aid and im-ports. Since the 1980s, Niger has increasinglybecome unable to feed itself. Even in a goodrainfall year such as 2005, rural families whocan produce enough food to feed themselvesyear round are rare. Most families produceenough food to cover their needs for no morethan six months. Diets are generally deficientin protein, calories, and essential vitamins andminerals. In addition, the decline of pastoraland agricultural resources is also leading to anincreased number of conflicts between farm-ers and herders. The traditional coping mech-anisms of both groups are no longer as vi-able as they once were in dealing with droughtand food shortages (Bernus 1980, Mortimore1991).

The scarcity of farmland has forced Niger’sagrarian population to revert to survivalstrategies incompatible with sustainable nat-ural resource management. Niger’s heavy re-liance on increasingly scarce wood as the mainsource of household energy is a major cause ofnatural resource degradation. Land scarcity isforcing many farmers onto lands traditionally


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reserved for pastoralists. This results in loweryields and increased conflicts with pastoralists.

The food crisis experienced in Niger in2005 was not a transitory emergency but apermanent characteristic of the rising strug-gle for survival in Niger. Annual rainfall datafor the past 30 years shows that 1973, 1975,1981, 1983, 1987, 1993, 2002, and 2004 werethe worst rainfall years. However, 2004 was farfrom being the driest year for Niger in the past30 years. So what made 2004 stand out in themedia? Where were the media in 2002, 1993,. . . 1973? Medecins sans Frontieres were thefirst to report the high rates of malnutritionin Niger in 2005. However, the child malnu-trition rates reported in 2005 were similar toprevious years (CARE-BARA 1997).

One lesson from the recent food crisis inNiger concerns the tardiness with which as-sistance was mobilized despite repeated warn-ings since the poor harvest of 2004. Highmarket prices, poor management of the na-tional cereal reserves, and locust infestationsin some areas have aggravated the food short-age situation.

Effective and sustainable ways to deal withfamine and food shortages in Niger must ad-dress the underlying causes of increased vul-nerability for most households in the coun-try. Among those underlying causes, one mustfigure the low status of women in Niger’smale-dominated society. In addition, food cri-sis prevention should be an integrated compo-nent of emergency relief assistance. However,one major challenge is to have donors readyand willing to fund crisis prevention and al-ternatives to famine relief interventions ratherthan fund emergencies that never end.

THE FUTURE OF FOODSECURITY IN SUB-SAHARANAFRICA: TOWARD ARIGHTS-BASED APPROACH

Food Security as a Human Right

The International Covenant on Economic,Social, and Cultural Rights adopted by the

United Nations in 1966 formalized the rightto food as a basic human right, which hadbeen cited in the 1948 Declaration of HumanRights. The Rome Declaration on WorldFood Security in 1996 reaffirmed the “right ofeveryone to have adequate access to safe andnutritious food . . . and be free from hunger”(FAO 1996, p. 631). However, despite thesedeclarations, no international mechanismshave been devised to uphold this right for-mally. The 1996 World Food Summit broughttogether leaders of 185 countries to developactions to end world hunger. Food insecu-rity and vulnerability mapping systems werecreated at this summit to monitor global andnational efforts to reach food security goals.Another tool recently devised to link humanrights standards with humanitarian interven-tions is the The Sphere Project (Oxfam 2000),which is the first attempt to develop globallyapplicable minimum standards of humanitar-ian response (Young & Way 2004).

A rights-based approach to food securityemerges from a more general human rightsframework that affirms the basic rights of allpeople irrespective of race, culture, religionand gender. The approach implicates a widerange of local, nongovernmental, and inter-national actors in defining policy and actionsto reduce hunger. It can refocus attentionon several important aspects of food security,including the responsibility of internationalinstitutions and states to guarantee humanrights, the agency of food-insecure groups toclaim their legal rights, and the ways of in-corporating rights-based indicators into foodsecurity measurement (Hussein 2002).

Impacts of HIV/AIDS on FoodSecurity

The most significant change in livelihoodsecurity and the nature of famine over thepast decade in Sub-Saharan Africa has beenthe rapidly growing impact of HIV/AIDS(de Waal 2004). The AIDS epidemic has af-fected Sub-Saharan Africa more than anyother region of the world, and the highest

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global rates of HIV infection and AIDS-related deaths are in Africa, especially south-ern Africa (de Waal & Whiteside 2003). Inaddition, AIDS claims a high proportion oflives of the most productive adult householdmembers, leaving behind children and se-nior household members who have difficultyreplacing the lost labor force (Kadiyala &Gillespie 2003).

In an analysis of the recent food crisis insouthern Africa, De Waal & Whiteside (2003)argue that HIV/AIDS has created a new cate-gory of highly vulnerable households owing tothe presence of illness or AIDS-related deaths.The rising threat of HIV/AIDS to Africanlivelihoods is the root cause of a new vari-ant of famine in which African householdsface increasing vulnerability to food short-ages and diminished possibilities of recov-ery. Elevated rates of adult morbidity andmortality caused by AIDS drastically reducethe household labor force, skills, and assets.The burden of caring for sick individuals fur-ther decreases the productive capacity of thehousehold and increases dependency ratioswithin households. Because AIDS increasesinter- and intrahousehold inequality, it is alsoa significant factor in making Africans moresusceptible to the effects of famine (de Waal& Whiteside 2003).

In addition, the relationship between HIVand malnutrition creates a vicious cycle. HIV-infected individuals have a greater need forproper nutrition and caloric intake and aremore vulnerable to food crises. Food inse-curity also raises risk of exposure to initialHIV infection by increasing the likelihoodthat people will engage in high-risk behaviors,such as seasonal migration. HIV and malnu-trition compound their effects reciprocally inan afflicted individual: As increased morbiditymakes dietary intake requirements higher, theindividual has greater nutritional deficiency,which further suppresses the immune sys-tem and hastens the progression of the dis-ease (Gillespie & Kadiyala 2004, Hendriks2005). Whereas other household membersmay choose to reduce caloric intake in the

FEWS: famine earlywarning systems

early stages of a crisis, as a strategy to preservetheir livelihoods in the long run, HIV-positiveindividuals face severe health repercussionsin this situation. HIV sufferers have greaternutritional needs (Haddad & Gillespie 2001);therefore reducing overall food consumptionis not a viable strategy (O’Donnell 2004).Fortified, high-energy foods developed in the1990s have been used successfully by nutri-tion specialists in patient-specific treatments,including those for HIV patients. Neverthe-less, these food supplements do not reducethe necessity of expanding access to antiretro-viral drugs or other medical treatments forHIV/AIDS patients (Webb 2003).

The realities of the HIV/AIDS pandemicin Africa must be more fully integrated intofamine, food security, and vulnerability stud-ies and interventions. Gillespie & Kadiyala(2004) advocate adopting an HIV/AIDS lensin all development and humanitarian pro-gramming, using a framework similar to thehousehold livelihood security framework de-scribed above, which would more fully inte-grate the changing needs of communities af-fected by HIV/AIDS into the discourse andpractice of aid.

FAMINE PREVENTIONAND RESPONSE STRATEGIES

The idea of early warning systems can betraced to the Indian Famine Codes estab-lished in the colonial era to provide a sys-tematic assessment of risk of famine in In-dia. During the 1970s, the combination offalling food stocks worldwide and an in-crease in droughts affecting India and Africarenewed interest in early warning systems(Webb & Harinarayan 1999). Contemporaryfamine early warning systems (FEWS) useremote-sensing data from satellites that de-tect levels of chlorophyll production in plantsas an indicator of food production. Togetherwith economic data on prices and quantitiesof foods available in local markets, these dataprovide indications of national and regionalfood needs, which are used in policy decisions


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WFP: World FoodProgram

(Gaile & Ferguson 1996). These systems areoften conceived and funded by the interna-tional community to prevent massive disas-ters. They are not designed to address local-ized small-scale vulnerabilities. The fact thatfood crises occur in Sub-Saharan Africa on aregular basis is evidence of the limitations ofthe existing warning systems.

Howe & Devereux (2004) have arguedfor the need to develop a multilevel, grad-uated definition of famine based on inten-sity and magnitude measures to complementtraditional early-warning systems in a com-prehensive humanitarian information system(Maxwell & Watkins 2003). Currently thereare no generally accepted criteria of whichrates indicate the onset of a famine, and thislack of consensus contributes to delays inintervention and lack of accountability onthe part of various stakeholders. The estab-lishment of such criteria would allow formore effective and proportionate responsesand greater accountability of food crises. Inthis proposed universal system, famine inten-sity would measure the severity of a crisis interms of anthropometric and mortality indi-cators and food security descriptors, whereasfamine magnitude would assess the aggregateimpact of the crisis in affected populations ac-cording to excess mortality rates. Such scaleswould establish standardized criteria for iden-tifying the onset of famines worldwide andwould serve as a useful tool for stakeholdersengaged in famine prevention and relief.

GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATIONSYSTEMS

Geographic information systems (GIS) areplaying an increasingly important role infood security. A GIS stores and links car-tographic map features with geographicallyreferenced, spatio-temporal data on socio-economic and other kinds of conditions. GISmethods have been most widely used in thedeveloping world for public health and epi-demiology, especially for tracking cases of tu-berculosis and malaria, and have become stan-

dard tools in humanitarian emergencies (Park& Baro 2003). GIS is especially useful as acomponent of rapid assessments to identifythe magnitude and locations of a crisis andthe resources needed for relief operations.GIS has greatly improved ways of present-ing and analyzing epidemiological data andspatio-temporal information that has impli-cations for programmatic planning and lo-gistics, resource allocation, and monitoringand evaluation of humanitarian emergencies(Kaiser et al. 2003, p. 137). Further integra-tion of GIS methods in prevention and reliefefforts will enable improvements in famineearly warning systems, assessments, monitor-ing and evaluation.

Improving the Aid Encounter: TheRole of International Organizations,Government, and Civil Society

Since the mid-1970s with the onset of a worldfood crisis, the international community hascreated several structures to monitor, pre-vent, and respond to global food crises, in-cluding the World Food Program (WFP),a branch of the United Nations responsi-ble for obtaining and moving large quanti-ties of food in response to emergencies, globalFEWS, and expanded agricultural programsin foreign universities funded by USAID andother bilateral aid programs (Herdt 2004).Traditionally, famine relief in Africa has takenthe form of multilateral food aid brokeredby large international organizations such asWFP, national governments, and nongovern-mental and community-based organizations.Food aid can be essential not only in replacinglost assets but also in lessening the economicthreat of famines by helping to preserve exist-ing assets (de Waal 1990). One of the biggestproblems associated with food aid has beenthe inadequacy of African transportation in-frastructures for ensuring reliable and equi-table food delivery. In recent food crises inSudan and Ethiopia, for example, food re-lief piled up in capital cities and intermediatepoints owing to a lack of available and reliable

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transportation to distribute food to remoterural areas (Gaile & Ferguson 1996). Also,the high potential for diversion of food aidcan be attributed to corruption at various lev-els. Government corruption and inefficiencyare major obstructions to food aid distribu-tion (Lee 2004). Even in the best-case scenariowhen food aid successfully arrives at its desti-nation, its trajectory commonly ends in a siteconveniently located along a main paved roadaxis for ease of unloading and storage. Becauseof these logistical constraints, remote villagesare rarely served directly by traditional foodaid programs.

For more than half a century, millions ofpeople affected by famine have been fed byAmerican humanitarian groups provided withfood by the U.S. government. To save money,Congress is considering spending a quarter ofthe food-aid budget on purchases of food fromother countries, although current law requiressuch purchases to be from American farmers.This change risks cutting out the U.S. mid-dlemen who make significant profits from thefood-aid business. Indeed, the funds going tomiddlemen are as great as those going to farm-ers. Most major charities have also been tiedinto this system of contractual obligations andquid pro quo arrangements, and they doubtthat there will be as much congressional sup-port for aid if it does not also benefit U.S.farmers (Thurow & Kilman 2005).

[Whereas] parts of Africa are routinelywracked by hunger, some countries oftenproduce surpluses of wheat and corn. In2003, for instance, the United States sent∼100,000 tons of American-grown grain toUganda at a cost of $57 million to feed peo-ple in the country’s north. At the same time,Ugandan farmers elsewhere were producingsurplus crops their government could notafford to buy and transport. John Magnay,chief executive of Uganda Grain TradersLtd., estimates that the United States couldhave purchased more than twice as muchgrain if it had bought it locally. He calcu-lates that USAID spent $447 per ton for U.S.

corn delivered to his country. The cost forUgandan corn was $180 per ton. (Thurow& Kilman 2005, p. A1)

There is no doubt that U.S. farmers andshippers are able to benefit from the bi-lateral food programs, but is that benefitmore important than finding creative andmore efficient ways to save lives and protectlivelihoods?

Cash transfer programs are gaining moreadvocates in the African context and are likelyto continue expanding in the future. Cashtransfers offer several benefits over food aid,especially by significantly decreasing the over-head and transportation costs of delivery, in-creasing local cash flows, stimulating marketgrowth, and allowing beneficiaries more au-tonomy to prioritize household needs and tochoose how to spend aid in local markets.Critics of cash programs have aired concernsthat cash transfers have a higher potential forcorruption, are difficult to monitor, and couldlead to rapid price increase because of an influxof cash in local markets. In 2005, in Niger, theBritish Red Cross initiated the first large-scalepilot cash-assistance program in the Tanoutregion of northeastern Niger to benefit 5700households in 90 of the most vulnerable vil-lages in Tanout. Each household received alump sum of $240 to meet household foodand livestock needs in response to last year’swidespread food shortages and livestock loss.Global positioning satellite points were es-tablished for each household for long-termmonitoring purposes. The project was wellreceived by local communities who cited theadvantages of controlling their own use of theaid. Today, this innovative project is viewedas one of the best success stories during therecent food crisis in Niger.

Recent critics of aid programs havepointed out that donors often remain “trappedin an eternal present” (Keen 1994, p. 215)with little understanding of the historicalcontext or future implications of famines orfamine relief operations. In addition, agen-cies have tended to separate short-term relief


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efforts from longer-term development initia-tives, thereby constructing a false dichotomybetween two points that coexist on the samecontinuum. Famine prevention needs to bemore fully integrated into long-term devel-opment programs rather than waiting until acrisis erupts. Humanitarian relief should ide-ally aim to preserve livelihoods, and reliefshould be linked to longer-term developmentprograms (Pingali et al. 2005). In addition,both emergency and sustainable developmentinterventions should be better tailored tothe needs of heterogeneous groups with dif-ferent income and livelihood strategies andgeographic locations (Webb & von Braun1994).

A Needed Focus on Exit Strategies

An exit strategy for an emergency food pro-gram is a specific plan describing how the pro-gram will withdraw from a region or popula-tion while assuring that the achievement ofdevelopment goals is not jeopardized and thatfurther progress toward these goals will con-tinue after the program ends. “Exit” refersto the withdrawal of externally provided re-sources, whether material goods, human re-sources, or technical assistance, from the op-erational area. The goal of an exit strategy isto assure the sustainability of the program’simpacts and activities.

Any emergency response to a famine orfood crisis must be accompanied by appropri-ate exits from these same emergencies. Know-ing how to end an emergency response mustbe as important as knowing when to beginone.

Disasters or crises often extend beyond na-tional boundaries. In these settings, one mustconsider the broader regional context. A pri-mary example of cross-border crisis is conflict.For example, one cause of the complex emer-gency in Cote d’Ivoire, and a critical compo-nent of the response, is massive displacementboth internally and in neighboring countries.

A second example of a shock that requiresa regional approach is HIV/AIDS, a long-

wave emergency often exacerbated by othershocks. One common coping strategy forpopulations facing long-term poverty, con-flict, or detrimental changes in the policy ormacroeconomic situation is cross-border mi-gration. This is particularly problematic in aregion with high rates of HIV/AIDS, such assouthern Africa.

Emergency responses in the face of recur-rent shocks can be programmed more strate-gically by undertaking activities that reducehouseholds’ exposure to risk and increase theirresilience to shocks before they occur. Emer-gency response is put into a broader frame-work of risk management and can be effec-tively linked to safety nets and developmentactivities. We must establish a holistic con-ceptual framework that focuses on short- andlong-term vulnerability. The primary empha-sis should be on the risks and resiliencies ofhouseholds and communities. Such a concep-tual framework not only identifies the typesof information that need to be collected in as-sessments, but also identifies the types of in-terventions appropriate for saving lives in theshort term and enhancing livelihoods in thelong term. The key to this framework is to il-lustrate that artificial divisions between emer-gency programming and development pro-gramming are inappropriate. By focusing onvulnerability these distinctions are no longerrelevant.

Although often problematic and inade-quate, the work of international aid orga-nizations has been indispensable in reliev-ing some of Africa’s greatest food crises inrecent decades. Alleviating famine, however,should not fall exclusively within the purviewof international organizations. African gov-ernments must play a major role in improv-ing national-level responses before relyingon external sources of aid. Sen (1999) pro-posed that famines have never occurred infunctioning electoral democracies and thatdemocracy is the best guarantee againstfamine. This statement has been challengedby the occurrence of famines in democraticregimes in India (Bihar Famine) and Sudan

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(1986–1989 famine) that ensued despitethe presence of democratic governmentswith competitive elections and a free press(Myhrvold-Hanssen 2003). Although Sen in-sists on the importance of a free press and ac-tive political opposition in preventing famine,one must consider the constraints posed by il-literacy on the ultimate power of the press.Africa has the lowest literacy rates in theworld, and this factor limits the ability of thepopulation to react to early warnings issuedby the press.

Nevertheless, Sen’s link between famineand governance remains a crucial considera-tion in the future of hunger relief. Famines arenot likely to cease without improving govern-ment accountability and strengthening civilsociety. Good governance must include effi-cient and accountable use of resources, trans-parent and nondiscriminatory distribution ofresources, participatory planning, and con-trol of resources at a decentralized, local level(Webb & von Braun 1994). Good governancealso requires the presence of a strong andactive civil society, and this is another areain which capacity building is needed. Edu-cation is another essential component in re-ducing food insecurity. Studies of child mal-nutrition have shown that improvement inwomen’s education is the single most impor-tant factor in reducing child malnutrition, as-sociated with a 43% decline in malnutrition(Smith & Haddad 2000). More emphasis onensuring basic literacy and access to educationand health care throughout Africa is an im-portant long-term investment in future foodsecurity.

In conclusion, an important paradigm shiftis underway in the field of famine and foodsecurity studies. Famine is now explained lessin terms of an anomalous disaster event andmore commonly as a process rooted in long-term social, economic, and political inequali-ties and sharply exacerbated by the incidenceof violent conflict and war. More research onthe household-level impacts of famine andcontextual knowledge in crisis situations isnecessary to understand better the nature,scale, and history of crises and the evolutionof different aspects of food security as condi-tions change during crises (Flores et al. 2005).This type of local knowledge is essential to as-sess the needs, most effective responses, androle of social actors. Anthropological methodsare well suited to play a key role in address-ing these knowledge gaps. Anthropologistshave added valuable perspectives in famineand food security studies, including the ad-dition of long-term ethnographic studies, in-tegration of qualitative data and local formsof knowledge, and a greater emphasis on thesocio-political dimensions of food crises thataddress power relations.

Future food security for Africa dependson good governance, sound economic growthpolicies, and active preparedness (Webb &von Braun 1994). Until the underlying issuesof political accountability and economic dis-parity are adequately addressed, in the con-text of African governance and civil society, byinternational humanitarian interventions andlocal development planning, the persistenceof hunger will continue to plague most Africannations well into the twenty-first century.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance and comments of the following individuals:at the University of Arizona, Professors Jane Hill and Thomas K. Park in the Department ofAnthropology; Professor Timothy Finan, Drexel Woodson, and Don Nelson at the Bureau ofApplied Research in Anthropology; graduate students Micah Boyer, Lauren Carruth, AllisonDavis, Karyn Fox, Aminata Niang, John Mazzeo, Stefanie Herrmann, and Colin T. West inthe Department of Anthropology; Timothy Frankenberger and Clara Hagens at TANGOInternational; Alex de Waal at Justice Africa; Director Steven Loyston and staff from theInternational Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent operations in Niger; and Paul Jenkins


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and Paul Anticoni from the British Red Cross in London. The views expressed in this revieware solely those of the authors.

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Contents ARI 13 August 2006 13:30

Annual Review ofAnthropology

Volume 35, 2006

Contents

Prefatory Chapter

On the Resilience of Anthropological ArchaeologyKent V. Flannery � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 1

Archaeology

Archaeology of Overshoot and CollapseJoseph A. Tainter � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �59

Archaeology and Texts: Subservience or EnlightenmentJohn Moreland � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 135

Alcohol: Anthropological/Archaeological PerspectivesMichael Dietler � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 229

Early Mainland Southeast Asian Landscapes in the FirstMillennium a.d.

Miriam T. Stark � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 407

The Maya CodicesGabrielle Vail � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 497

Biological Anthropology

What Cultural Primatology Can Tell Anthropologists about theEvolution of CultureSusan E. Perry � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 171

Diet in Early Homo: A Review of the Evidence and a New Model ofAdaptive VersatilityPeter S. Ungar, Frederick E. Grine, and Mark F. Teaford � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 209

Obesity in Biocultural PerspectiveStanley J. Ulijaszek and Hayley Lofink � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 337

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Evolution of the Size and Functional Areas of the Human BrainP. Thomas Schoenemann � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 379

Linguistics and Communicative Practices

Mayan Historical Linguistics and Epigraphy: A New SynthesisSøren Wichmann � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 279

Environmental DiscoursesPeter Muhlhausler and Adrian Peace � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 457

Old Wine, New Ethnographic LexicographyMichael Silverstein � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 481

International Anthropology and Regional Studies

The Ethnography of FinlandJukka Siikala � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 153

Sociocultural Anthropology

The Anthropology of MoneyBill Maurer � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �15

Food and GlobalizationLynne Phillips � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �37

The Research Program of Historical EcologyWilliam Balée � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �75

Anthropology and International LawSally Engle Merry � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �99

Institutional Failure in Resource ManagementJames M. Acheson � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 117

Indigenous People and Environmental PoliticsMichael R. Dove � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 191

Parks and Peoples: The Social Impact of Protected AreasPaige West, James Igoe, and Dan Brockington � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 251

Sovereignty RevisitedThomas Blom Hansen and Finn Stepputat � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 295

Local Knowledge and Memory in Biodiversity ConservationVirginia D. Nazarea � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 317

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Food and MemoryJon D. Holtzman � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 361

Creolization and Its DiscontentsStephan Palmié � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 433

Persistent Hunger: Perspectives on Vulnerability, Famine, and FoodSecurity in Sub-Saharan AfricaMamadou Baro and Tara F. Deubel � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 521

Theme 1: Environmental Conservation

Archaeology of Overshoot and CollapseJoseph A. Tainter � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �59

The Research Program of Historical EcologyWilliam Balée � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �75

Institutional Failure in Resource ManagementJames M. Acheson � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 117

Indigenous People and Environmental PoliticsMichael R. Dove � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 191

Parks and Peoples: The Social Impact of Protected AreasPaige West, James Igoe, and Dan Brockington � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 251

Local Knowledge and Memory in Biodiversity ConservationVirginia D. Nazarea � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 317

Environmental DiscoursesPeter Mühlhäusler and Adrian Peace � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 457

Theme 2: Food

Food and GlobalizationLynne Phillips � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �37

Diet in Early Homo: A Review of the Evidence and a New Model ofAdaptive VersatilityPeter S. Ungar, Frederick E. Grine, and Mark F. Teaford � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 209

Alcohol: Anthropological/Archaeological PerspectivesMichael Dietler � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 229

Obesity in Biocultural PerspectiveStanley J. Ulijaszek and Hayley Lofink � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 337

Food and MemoryJon D. Holtzman � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 361

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Old Wine, New Ethnographic LexicographyMichael Silverstein � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 481

Persistent Hunger: Perspectives on Vulnerability, Famine, and FoodSecurity in Sub-Saharan AfricaMamadou Baro and Tara F. Deubel � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 521

Indexes

Subject Index � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 539

Cumulative Index of Contributing Authors, Volumes 27–35 � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 553

Cumulative Index of Chapter Titles, Volumes 27–35 � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 556

Errata

An online log of corrections to Annual Review of Anthropology chapters (if any, 1997 tothe present) may be found at http://anthro.annualreviews.org/errata.shtml

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Persistent Hunger: Perspectives on Vulnerability, Famine, and Food Security in Sub-Saharan Africa

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