SpotlightSiobhan Mattison Awarded NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant
CSDE Fellow Siobhan Mattison, anthropology, has been awarded a NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant. The title of her research is, "Fathers or Uncles? Tourism and Men's Decision-Making among the Matrilineal Na." The ethnic Na are China’s last extant matrilineal population. As such, they are the focus of much attention. Ethnographers and curious spectators are especially intrigued by reports of an unusual coupling system, in which men spend nights calling to women through their bedroom windows, coaxing women to concede to a single evening of romantic pleasure. Women are said to expect nothing further from their lovers, releasing them from providing support for any impending children. Accounts portraying the Na in this light have been criticized for radicalizing the Na as an outlier among human populations, for internal inconsistencies in ethnographic reports, and for a general lack of evidence substantiating these claims. Pilot work in 2006 revealed that many relationships are far more stable than previously reported and that men often provide substantial assistance to their lovers’ households. To provide a more balanced view of the Na’s social structure, this proposed research project intends to document the variation in coupling patterns among the Na, and specifically the extent to which men are expected to and provide assistance to their lovers’ households. In particular, this research will examine whether the emergence of a market economy, along with individual characteristics, affects whether and how men support their biological children. Several hypotheses derived from Human Behavioral Ecology will be tested using diverse methods such as household censuses, structured interviews and behavioral observation, to determine how individual factors interact with the local context to influence parenting and kinship among the matrilineal Na of Southwest China. Siobhan expects to be in the field from January 2008 - January 2009. Her faculty sponsor is Dr. Eric Smith, CSDE Research Affiliate. |
