#555 Karen Kramer: Life History, Parenting, Population Growth, Dispersals, and Mating Systems
RECORDED ON JULY 21st 2021.
Dr. Karen Kramer is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Utah. Her research interests span behavioral ecology, demography, comparative life history and reproductive ecology, the evolution of juvenility, cooperative breeding, intergenerational transfers and the interaction between economic and demographic transitions. The question that unifies her research is why do humans have the unparalleled capacity for population growth compared to closely related species? Her field work in a traditional Maya village in the Yucatan, Mexico has focused on documenting and modeling children’s time allocation, juvenile cooperation, intergenerational resource flows, female energetics, and high fertility in a pretransitional population. Her research among the Pumé, a group of South American mobile hunter-gatherers addresses questions about children’s growth, development and reproductive strategies, and the effects that seasonal resource availability has on fertility and child mortality. She also collaborates with conservation biologists and primatologists working in the Madagascar highlands.
In this episode, we talk about human life history; cooperative breeding; human parenting; parental investment; female energetics and fertility and child-rearing; teen motherhood in traditional societies; Dr. Kramer’s work on the Pumé from Venezuela and Maya villages in Mexico, and what she learned from them; what drives population growth in human societies; how sex ratios influence dispersal patterns and family formation; and mating systems.
Time Links:
Intro
Human life history
Human parenting
Female energetics, fertility, and child rearing
The Pumé from Venezuela, and Maya villages in Mexico
What drives population growth
Sex ratios, dispersal patterns, and family formation
Mating systems in human societies
Follow Dr. Kramer’s work!
Follow Dr. Kramer’s work:
Faculty page: https://bit.ly/398EFyK
ResearchGate profile: https://bit.ly/3lKklsF