MONIQUE BORGERHOFF MULDER

Brief Bio

I am a human behavioural ecologist working in all kinds of collaborative projects relating to life history, conservation, and global patterns of cultural variation. HBE-ers explore the big "Why" questions about our species, such as why do people marry, what is the basis of gender roles in economic and social behaviour, why has fertility dropped so radically in most parts of the world, why are people such poor conservationists of natural resources, and many others. I have three major projects.

 

First, I do fieldwork in East Africa, both alone and with students, investigating issues relating to human life history variation, studying fertility, marriage, inheritance, divorce, sexual conflict, health and household economics. I am currently coordinating a collaborative project on intergenerational transmission at the Santa Fe Institute, with Sam Bowles.

Second, I work on both the evolutionary and applied aspects of natural resource management, particularly with respect to conflicts over land use and community conservation (Borgerhoff Mulder and Coppolillo, 2005). With students we have worked on meta-analyses of the success of different conservation strategies. In 2006 with collaborators at the University of Minnesota we set up Savannas Forever as a Tanzanian NGO designed to seek practical solutions to the conservation of natural resources through collaboration with and possible certification of the safari hunting business.

Third I am interested in grand global pattenrs of macrocultural variation. In collabortion with Charlie Nunn, Mary Towner and Mark Grote we are developing new methods for determining the roles of history and geography in patterning cultural variation.

Recently I have become involved in development work, setting up the MIMAMPI, a community-based environmental organisation in Tanzania, and in upgrading hospitals in Tanzania’s Rukwa Region with Direct Relief International and Bush Hospital Foundation; and in collaborating with a research team at Ranomafana National Park, Madagascar. I also edit, with Joe Henrich, a book series, Origins of Human Behavior and Culture (University of California Press).

For blatant self advertisement, anyone thinking seriously about conducting anthropological research in developing nations should read the entertaining tales of many of my friends and acquaintances: "I've been gone far too long."

 

Borgerhoff Mulder, M. & Coppolillo, P. (2005). Conservation: Linking Ecology, Economics and Culture. Princeton University Press.

(Table of Contents & Sample Chapter)

I've Been Gone Far Too Long: Field Trip Fiascoes and Expedition Disasters (1996), eds. Monique Borgerhoff Mulder & Wendy Logsdon. RDR Books, Oakland.

UC Davis Anthropology Faculty

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