The Household Ecology: Investigating the Household Response to Food Insecurity among the Lacandon Maya

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Starvation and malnutrition have ravaged societies for thousands of years, but the effort to leverage food insecurity has existed just as long. When faced with hunger, humans adapt and respond to the best of their abilities, which may look different according to the resources and options available to them at the time. Maya subsistence literature has a long history of examining the management of food insecurity from a top-down perspective, often overlooking improvisational abilities at the household level. The household is the nexus where families confront their opportunities and make choices to survive (ReCruz 1996). It is an effective method to study the symptoms and management of food insecurity under socioeconomic and environmental change. Drawing on ethnographic studies among the Lacandon Maya in Chiapas, Mexico, I investigate how households respond to food insecurity by examining household ecology, or “the study of the relations of appropriation and management of resources” (Wilk 1977:204). I argue that Lacandon households are highly adaptive and dynamic structures, especially during times of food insecurity, heavily relying on foraging strategies and the flexible roles of women and children. Ultimately, the lessons learned from the Lacandon can contribute to discussions of starvation management, both past and present.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37390.0