Overview
This project seeks to combine in-depth qualitative and quantitative ethnography with experiments, formal tasks, and biometric measurements to examine cultural transmission, ethno marine ecology, social norms and cooperation, folksociology and kinship, thinking about chiefs, and history on Yasawa Island in Fiji.
Location
Yasawa Island, Fiji
Villages of Teci, Dalomo, and Bukama, as well as Totoya in the Moala Group
Process
- Behavioral experiments measure people's social preferences.
- We utilize formal tasks, such as a pile sort to help us figure out how people categorize the marine ecology and understand relationships.
- All of our work integrates observation of daily life, collecting littoral food sources, and cognitive measures.
- We use time allocation and a variety of interviews to track how and with whom people spend their time.
- Research is done by Fijians, hired and trained in research techniques to assist with the project.
- Each year, we take physical and health measures of everyone.
- We are interested in the transmission of cultural knowledge and are using network methods to map pathways of cultural transmission.