1st ed. 2020 Edition
by Hugo Azcorra (Editor), Federico Dickinson (Editor)
This book adopts a human ecology approach to present an overview of
the biological responses to social, political, economic, cultural and
environmental changes that affected human populations in the Yucatan
Peninsula, Mexico, since the Classic Maya Period. Human bodies express
social relations, and we can read these relations by analyzing
biological tissues or systems, and by measuring certain phenotypical
traits at the population level. Departing from this theoretical premise,
the contributors to this volume analyze the interactions between
ecosystems, sociocultural systems and human biology in a specific
geographic region to show how changes in sociocultural and natural
environment affect the health of a population over time.
This
edited volume brings together contributions from a range of different
scientific disciplines – such as biological anthropology,
bioarchaeology, human biology, nutrition, epidemiology, ecotoxicology,
political economy, sociology and ecology – that analyze the interactions
between culture, environment and health in different domains of human
life, such as:
- The political ecology of food, nutrition and health
- Impacts of social and economic changes in children’s diet and women’s fertility
- Biological consequences of social vulnerability in urban areas
- Impacts of toxic contamination of natural resources on human health
- Ecological and sociocultural determinants of infectious diseases
Culture, Environment and Health in the Yucatan Peninsula – A Human Ecology Perspective will
be of interest to researchers from the social, health and life
sciences dedicated to the study of the interactions between natural
environments, human biology, health and social issues, especially in
fields such as biological and sociocultural anthropology, health
promotion and environmental health. It will also be a useful tool to
health professionals and public agents responsible for designing and
applying public health policies in contexts of social vulnerability.
