Rahul Oka

Domesticated Landscapes: The Subsistence Ecology of Plant and Animal Domestication

Harvesting different species as foods or raw materials calls for differing skills depending on the species being harvested and the circumstances under which they are being taken. In some situations and for some species, the tactics used are mainly behavioral—that is, people adjust, or adapt, their own actions to fit the behavior and circumstances of the species they are taking. Under other circumstances and for other species, the skills and tactics used may call for greater environmental preparation or manipulation. Therefore, instead of trying to distinguish people today and in the past as either “foragers” or “farmers,” it makes sense to define human subsistence behavior as an interactive matrix of species and harvesting tactics, that is, as a provisions spreadsheet.

Adiposity, CVD risk factors and testosterone

Abstract Background and objectives In many settings, partnered, invested fathers have lower testosterone than single men or fathers who are not involved in caregiving. Reduced testosterone has been identified as a risk factor for multiple chronic diseases, and men’s health also commonly varies by life history status. There have been few tests of whether variation in testosterone based on partnering and parenting has implications for men’s health. Methodology We analysed data from a US population-representative sample (NHANES) of young-to-middle aged US men (n = 875; mean age: 29.8 years ± 6.0 [SD]). We tested for life history status differences in testosterone, adiposity levels and biomarkers of cardiovascular disease (CVD)-risk (HDL cholesterol; triglycerides; white blood cell count [WBC]). Results Partnered men residing with children (RC) had lower testosterone and elevated abdominal adiposity compared to never married men not residing with children. While they did not significantly differ for WBC or triglycerides, partnered RC men also had comparatively lower HDL. Partnered RC males’ lower testosterone accounted for their relatively elevated adiposity, but testosterone, adiposity, and health-related covariates did not explain their relatively reduced HDL. Conclusions and implications Our results linking life history status-based differences in testosterone and adiposity, alongside our complementary HDL findings, indicate that testosterone-related psychobiology might have implications for partnered RC men’s CVD risk in the US and other similar societal settings. These types of socially contextualized observations of men’s health and physiological function particularly merit incorporation in clinical discussions of fatherhood as a component of men’s health.

Refugee impacts on Turkana hosts : a social impact analysis for Kakuma town and refugee camp Turkana County, Kenya

Turkana County, until 2013 known formerly as Turkana District of the Rift Valley Province of Kenya, is the largest county in Kenya (77,000 square kilometers). It is also one of the most impoverished and marginalized areas of the country and indeed in all of Sub-Saharan Africa. Kakuma Refugee Camp is the largest settlement in Turkana County.This report outlines the complex dynamic interface between narratives, interactions, and external factors in determining the impacts of refugees on the social economies and psychosocial well-being of host communities by focusing on the refugees of Kakuma Refugee Camp and the Turkana host community located in Turkana County, Kenya. Various factors are explored in the attitudes, behaviors, and actions of refugee-host interactions that foster a sense of indignity (matharau in KiSwahili and ng’imeny in Turkana). The feeling of servitude and inequity many experience as a result of these interactions can be described by the Turkana word etic (pronounced e-tich), which means working for or under. The overall goal of the social impact analysis is to provide a set of evidence-based insights and policy recommendations to the Kenyan government, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and associated bodies, and development actors to support Turkana’s development and to benefit Kakuma so that members of refugee and host communities alike can study, find jobs and opportunities, run businesses, work, raise children, celebrate achievements, and mourn their dead according to their own traditions and customs, and that they have equal access to health care and other public services. In short, the larger goal is to empower the refugees of Kakuma as well as their Turkana hosts to live lives of dignity.

Positive effects of refugee presence on host community nutritional status in Turkana County, Kenya

Refugee camps are often assumed to negatively impact local host communities through resource competition and conflict. We ask instead whether economic resources and trade networks associated with refugees have benefits for host community health and nutrition. To address this question we assess the impacts of Kakuma Refugee Camp in northwest Kenya, comparing anthropometric indicators of nutritional status between Turkana communities in the region.

Population is the main driver of war group size and conflict casualties

Significance Recent views on violence emphasize the decline in proportions of war groups and casualties to populations over time and conclude that past small-scale societies were more violent than contemporary states. In this paper, we argue that these trends are better explained through scaling relationships between population and war group size and between war group size and conflict casualties. We test these relationships and develop measures of conflict investment and lethality that are applicable to societies across space and time. When scaling is accounted for, we find no difference in conflict investment or lethality between small-scale and state societies. Given the lack of population data for past societies, we caution against using archaeological cases of episodic conflicts to measure past violence. The proportions of individuals involved in intergroup coalitional conflict, measured by war group size (W), conflict casualties (C), and overall group conflict deaths (G), have declined with respect to growing populations, implying that states are less violent than small-scale societies. We argue that these trends are better explained by scaling laws shared by both past and contemporary societies regardless of social organization, where group population (P) directly determines W and indirectly determines C and G. W is shown to be a power law function of P with scaling exponent X [demographic conflict investment (DCI)]. C is shown to be a power law function of W with scaling exponent Y [conflict lethality (CL)]. G is shown to be a power law function of P with scaling exponent Z [group conflict mortality (GCM)]. Results show that, while W/P and G/P decrease as expected with increasing P, C/W increases with growing W. Small-scale societies show higher but more variance in DCI and CL than contemporary states. We find no significant differences in DCI or CL between small-scale societies and contemporary states undergoing drafts or conflict, after accounting for variance and scale. We calculate relative measures of DCI and CL applicable to all societies that can be tracked over time for one or multiple actors. In light of the recent global emergence of populist, nationalist, and sectarian violence, our comparison-focused approach to DCI and CL will enable better models and analysis of the landscapes of violence in the 21st century.