Biological anthropologists have had a long standing interest in the biological consequences of culture change, whether it occurs in situ, as a result of economic development, or through migration. Previous work has demonstrated a relationship between acculturation, or the broadly defined changes that take place among groups and individuals upon contact with another culture, and biological indicators of stress including blood pressure and the stress hormones (e.g. catecholamines and cortisol). Poor health outcomes associated with stress include high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease, immune deficiency and increased susceptibility to infectious diseases and cancer, and poor birth outcomes. Until recently, however, little work has focused on intracultural variation, due for example to gender differences and ethnic discrimination, and the biological stress response. The proposed research draws from several related fields to examine the response to acculturative stress in the context of profound and rapid social change. The field-setting for this project is the state of Quintana Roo on the eastern coast of the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico. Since the early 1970s, this area has undergone rapid development in response to the international tourism industry. As such, many indigenous Yucatec Maya have been drawn from their subsistence-based lifestyles into the world economy. The process of acculturation occurs here in the context of a massive and growing tourist trade. Real and exaggerated images of western affluence heighten the tension between previous conceptions of self, family, and community and romanticized notions of western lifestyle. The impact of more than two million tourists yearly has dramatically altered the very life possibilities of these people. In this environment gender and social roles, as well as household and community organization are particuarly vulnerable to change, with resultant challenges to mental and physical well-being. Consequently, this environment is ideally suited to undertake the goal of this research: a sex-specific analysis of the individual, household, and community level forces that both create and buffer acculturative stress and its health consequences. Specifically the proposed research will address: the definition of, and biological and behavioral response to, gender-specific stressors; the impact of changing gender-role beliefs on the response to psychosocial stress; the process of ethnic discrimination and marginilization as a cultural stressor; and the contextual effect of household and community level processes on the individual stress response. The biological stress response will be measured primarily through overnight urinary catecholamines (stress hormones) and blood pressure, along with interviews assessing attitudes and beliefs in four communities along the Corredor Turistico (Tourist Corridor), which vary in their degree of dependence upon, and type of interaction with, tourism and tourists. This study will add to the anthropological literature on stress and acculturation by focusing on intracultural variation (particlarly gender and marginilization issues) in the biological response. Moreover, and importantly, this work will contribute to stress research in general, by examining the impact of social roles and expectations on human health, operating through the medium of the biological stress response and consequently has broad implications for a more thorough understanding of the relationship between social processes and health status. Additionally this work has practical importance. Change is inevitable for the Yucatec Maya as it is in similar populations around the world. This study will address the very real health problems that occur in the transition to a cash economy by identifying specific challenges to the mental and physical well-being of the Maya as they negotiate a rapidly changing world. Therefore, this study will provide a basis for the primary prevention and/or reduction of acculturative stress and associated diseases.
