Doctoral student Shannon Randolph, under the supervision of Dr. James Holland Jones and colleagues at Stanford University, will undertake research on the social dimensions of the African wildlife trade in urban Cameroon. Preliminary ethnographic research in the Cameroonian capital, Yaoundé, indicates that elite consumers may gain prestige and alliance benefits in the covert trade of increasingly rare forest animals. If confirmed, this finding would challenge the prevailing notion that urban poor Africans are the primary consumers and traders of wildlife. The explanation for this difference may lie in the distinction between the market for rare species, which involves elite consumers and high prices, versus common species and everyday trading.
Randolph will use ethnographic methods to investigate the role of kinship, social status, and economic status in the distribution and consumption "bushmeat." She also will collect data to construct ego-centric networks through which she will study social and demographic traits of consumers and sellers, hidden social aspects of the urban trade, and the cultural prestige benefits derived by individual consumers.
Understanding the segmentation of the bushmeat trade will enable more effective partnering of conservation and development policies to simultaneously address urban livelihood issues for traders and targeted trade regulation for threatened and endangered species. Additionally, because bushmeat consumption has been linked to a variety of health issues, the project will contribute to public health policy. This project is particularly significant because of the urban focus of the research, an aspect of African wild game market studies that remains largely unstudied. Through collaborative efforts with the Johns Hopkins Cameroon Program and the training of Cameroonian university students as research assistants, this research will also contribute to capacity building and shared knowledge with African partners, as well as the training of an American social scientist.
