Folkecology and commons management in the Maya Lowlands

Scott Atran (), Douglas Medin, Norbert Ross, Elizabeth Lynch, John Coley, Valentina Vapnarsky () and Edilberto Ucan Ek'
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Scott Atran: IJN - Institut Jean-Nicod - DEC - Département d'Etudes Cognitives - ENS-PSL - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - CdF (institution) - Collège de France - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - Département de Philosophie - ENS-PSL - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres

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Abstract: Three groups living off the same rainforest habitat manifest strikingly distinct behaviors, cognitions, and social relationships relative to the forest. Only the area's last native Maya reveal systematic awareness of ecological complexity involving animals, plants, and people and practices clearly favoring forest regeneration. Spanish-speaking immigrants prove closer to native Maya in thought, action, and social networking than do immigrant Maya. There is no overriding "local," "Indian," or "immigrant" relationship to the environment. Results indicate that exclusive concern with rational self-interest and institutional constraints do not sufficiently account for commons behavior and that cultural patterning of cognition and access to relevant information are significant predictors. Unlike traditional accounts of relations between culture, cognition, and behavior, the models offered are not synthetic interpretations of people's thoughts and behaviors but are emergent cultural patterns derived statistically from measurements of individual cognitions and behaviors.

Keywords: cognitive models; commons tragedy; culture consensus; social networks; sustainable agroforestry (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1999
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/ijn_00000132v1
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Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 1999, 96 (13), pp.7598-7603

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