Department of Earth System Science, Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA.
Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
Am J Hum Biol. 2021 Jul;33(4):e23633. doi: 10.1002/ajhb.23633. Epub 2021 Jun 28.
We describe the composition and variation of women's resource strategies in an arid-living Southern African agro-pastoralist society to gain insights into adaptation to climate-change-induced increased aridity.
Using cross-sectional data from 210 women collected in 2009 across 28 agro-pastoralist villages in Kaokoveld Namibia, we conducted principal-component (PC) analysis of resource variables and constructed profiles of resource strategies from the major PCs. Next, we explored associations between key resource strategies and demographic measures and fitness proxies.
The first two PCs accounted for 43% of women's overall resource variation. PC1 reflects women's ability to access market resources via livestock trading, while PC2 captured women's direct food access. We found that market strategies were more common among married women and less common among women who have experienced child mortality. Women with higher subsistence security were more likely to be from the OvaHimba tribe and had a higher risk of gonorrhea exposure. We also qualitatively explored drought-induced pressure on women's livestock. Finally, we show that sexual networks were attenuated during drought, indicating strain on social support.
Our results highlight how agro-pastoralist women manage critical resources in unpredictable environments, and how resource strategies distribute among the women in our study. Goats as a commodity to obtain critical resources suggests that some women have flexibility during drought when gardens fail and cattle die. However, increased aridity and drought may eventually overwhelm husbandry practices in this region.
我们描述了干旱地区南部非洲农牧社会中女性资源策略的构成和变化，以深入了解适应气候变化导致的干旱加剧的情况。
我们使用了 2009 年在纳米比亚 Kaokoveld 的 28 个农牧村庄中收集的 210 名女性的横断面数据，对资源变量进行了主成分（PC）分析，并从主要 PC 构建了资源策略的概况。然后，我们探讨了关键资源策略与人口统计学指标和健康指标之间的关联。
前两个 PC 占女性整体资源变化的 43%。PC1 反映了女性通过牲畜交易获取市场资源的能力，而 PC2 则反映了女性的直接食物获取能力。我们发现，市场策略在已婚女性中更为常见，而在经历过儿童死亡的女性中则不太常见。生计保障较高的女性更可能来自奥万博部落，淋病暴露的风险也更高。我们还定性地探讨了干旱对女性牲畜的压力。最后，我们表明，性网络在干旱期间减弱，表明社会支持受到压力。
我们的研究结果突出了农牧女性在不可预测的环境中管理关键资源的方式，以及资源策略在我们研究中的女性中如何分布。山羊作为获得关键资源的商品表明，在花园失败和牛死亡时，一些女性在干旱期间具有灵活性。然而，该地区的干旱和干旱加剧最终可能会使畜牧业实践不堪重负。
