Marsha B Quinlan | Washington State University (original) (raw)

Papers by Marsha B Quinlan

The Cross-Cultural Dog Database includes texts and coded data for Electronic Human Relations Area... more The Cross-Cultural Dog Database includes texts and coded data for Electronic Human Relations Areas Files (eHRAF) Standard Cross-Cultural Sample (SCCS). Data covers 152 culture groups including observations provided by 904 ethnographers. The database is available in excel and tab delimited text files. Codebook and data descriptions are included. These data were used in Chambers, J., Quinlan, M., Evans, A., & Quinlan, R. 2020 Dog-human coevolution: Cross-cultural analysis of alternative hypotheses. Journal of Ethnobiology, 40(4), 414-433.

Journal of Ethnobiology, Mar 1, 2023

Bell & Howell Information and Learning eBooks, 2000

CRC Press eBooks, Jul 10, 2023

List of Figures and Tables. Foreword. Preface. 1. The Importance of Home Remedies. 2. Dominica an... more List of Figures and Tables. Foreword. Preface. 1. The Importance of Home Remedies. 2. Dominica and Dominicans. 3. Bwa Mawego. 4. Methods. 5. Disease and Illness in Bwa Mawego. 6. Bwa Mawego"s Sectors of Healthcare. 7. Body Image in Bwa Mawego. 8. Bush Medicine in Bwa Mawego: Illnesses and their Treatments. 9. Applications and Conclusions. Appendix A. Appendix B. Appendix C. Glossary. Bibliography. Index.

Economic Botany

Q'eqchi' Maya villagers in Alta Verapaz, Guatemala, grow informal homegardens alo... more Q'eqchi' Maya villagers in Alta Verapaz, Guatemala, grow informal homegardens alongside fieldbased horticultural subsistence activities. Villagers cultivate 200 + homegarden plants that serve many functions including provisioning food and medicine. Semi-structured "plant walk" interviews with 31 informants and follow-up interviews with nine villagers informed on the presence of cultivated medicinal plants and residents' knowledge of plant names and uses. This research analyzes garden ethnobotanical data ethnographically to understand factors differentiating local herbal remedy availability and use. Hypotheses test medicinal plant presence in dooryard gardens in relation to socio-demographic and acculturation variables. Results show a high degree of intra-village sharing and variation in medicinal plant cultivation. Significant predictors of medicinal plants in homegardens are (1) distance from the main road (p = 0.012) and (2) presence of paid work within the home (p = 0.002) as opposed to paid work outside the home (wage labor). Home medicinal plant cultivation reflects Maya cultural esteem for collectivism (sharing) and site-specific ecological fit. By cultivating a variety of medicinal plants and sharing with kin and neighbors, villagers treat local illnesses in ecologically and culturally advantageous ways.

The Cross-Cultural Dog Database includes texts and coded data for Electronic Human Relations Area... more The Cross-Cultural Dog Database includes texts and coded data for Electronic Human Relations Areas Files (eHRAF) Standard Cross-Cultural Sample (SCCS). Data covers 152 culture groups including observations provided by 904 ethnographers. The database is available in excel and tab delimited text files. Codebook and data descriptions are included. These data were used in Chambers, J., Quinlan, M., Evans, A., & Quinlan, R. 2020 Dog-human coevolution: Cross-cultural analysis of alternative hypotheses. Journal of Ethnobiology, 40(4), 414-433.

Monogamy appears to have become the predominant human mating system with the emergence of highly ... more Monogamy appears to have become the predominant human mating system with the emergence of highly unequal agricultural populations that replaced relatively egalitarian horticultural populations, challenging the conventional idea—based on the polygyny threshold model—that polygyny should be positively associated with wealth inequality. To address this polygyny paradox, we generalize the standard polygyny threshold model to a mutual mate choice model predicting the fraction of women married polygynously. We then demonstrate two conditions that are jointly sufficient to make monogamy the predominant marriage form, even in highly unequal societies. We assess if these conditions are satisfied using individual-level data from 29 human populations. Our analysis shows that with the shift to stratified agricultural economies: (i) the population frequency of relatively poor individuals increased, increasing wealth inequality, but decreasing the frequency of individuals with sufficient wealth to secure polygynous marriage, and (ii) diminishing marginal fitness returns to additional wives prevent extremely wealthy men from obtaining as many wives as their relative wealth would otherwise predict. These conditions jointly lead to a high population-level frequency of monogamy.

Journal of The Royal Society Interface, 2018

Monogamy appears to have become the predominant human mating system with the emergence of highly ... more Monogamy appears to have become the predominant human mating system with the emergence of highly unequal agricultural populations that replaced relatively egalitarian horticultural populations, challenging the conventional idea-based on the polygyny threshold model-that polygyny should be positively associated with wealth inequality. To address this polygyny paradox, we generalize the standard polygyny threshold model to a mutual mate choice model predicting the fraction of women married polygynously. We then demonstrate two conditions that are jointly sufficient to make monogamy the predominant marriage form, even in highly unequal societies. We assess if these conditions are satisfied using individual-level data from 29 human populations. Our analysis shows that with the shift to stratified agricultural economies: (i) the population frequency of relatively poor individuals increased, increasing wealth inequality, but decreasing the frequency of individuals with sufficient wealth to secure polygynous

Ethnobiology Letters

We report on the top three ethnopharmacological herbs growing among a lowland Guatemalan Q’eqchi... more We report on the top three ethnopharmacological herbs growing among a lowland Guatemalan Q’eqchi’ community’s homegardens. In a gardening culture characterized by pragmatic species distribution and sharing, these few herbaceous species recur in multiple households’ dooryard gardens. Our aim in reporting on the most predominant ethnobotanical herbs gardened in a Maya Q’eqchi’ village’s dooryards is to valorize the capacities of local pharmacological traditions. Thirty-one walking homegarden interviews and participant-observation inform this research with village residents. Té de limón (Cymbopogon winterianus, for cough, fever), Qa’mank/Tres punta (Neurolaena lobata, for diabetes, fever, headache, gastrointestinal ills, evil eye), and Ruda (Ruta chalepensis, for children’s vomiting, weepiness, evil eye) are the prevalent non-woody Q’eqchi’ homegarden herbs here. Regional ethnomedical and extant pharmacology research mutually support the efficacy and continued practicality of these Q’...

A Companion to Medical Anthropology, 2022

Handbook of Research Methods in Health Social Sciences, 2019

A freelist is a mental inventory of items an individual thinks of within a given category. Freeli... more A freelist is a mental inventory of items an individual thinks of within a given category. Freelists reveal cultural "salience" of particular notions within groups, and variation in individuals' topical knowledge across groups. The ease and accuracy of freelist interviewing, or freelisting, makes it ideal for collecting data on health knowledge and beliefs from relatively large samples. Successful freelisting requires researchers to break the research topic into honed categories. Research participants presented with broad prompts tend to "unpack" mental subcategories and may omit (forget) common items or categories. Researchers should find subdomains to present individually for participants to unpack in separate smaller freelists. Researchers may focus the freelist prompts through successive freelisting, pile sorts, or focus group-interviews. Written freelisting among literate populations allows for rapid data collection, possibly from multiple individuals simultaneously. Among nonliterate peoples, using oral freelists remains a relatively rapid method; however, interviewers must prevent bystanders from "contaminating" individual interviewees' lists. Researchers should cross

Handbook of Research Methods in Health Social Sciences, 2017

Adolescent Identity, 2012

This longitudinal study in Dominica documents rural youth (ages 3-18) of one village hamlet befor... more This longitudinal study in Dominica documents rural youth (ages 3-18) of one village hamlet before and after television service. Data was obtained through semi-structured interviews, freelisting, participant-observation, and time allocation recordings (gathered through random instantaneous behavior scans [spot checks]). A 2008 study, four years post-television, replicates research on household time allocation conducted in the same community in 1993-4, when the few television sets in the village were for video use only. Television viewing is a social activity in the study village. Television appears to liberalize gender views, especially among teens and young adults. Village youth prefer Disney and animated programming. Parents note improved school performance, and local and global awareness as benefits of television, but list provocative dress, aggression, and rude attitudes as the biggest changes in youth since television introduction. Comparative time allocation measures find that pre-television children spent twice as much time being “passive” (awake but no apparent activity), however, the correlation between television watching and time spent in frankly passive activity is not significant. Post- television, there is a negative correlation between time spent watching television and playing, and significant associations between age, sex and playing exist such that older children play 3% less per year than younger children, and boys play 13% more than do girls, who spend more time at home than do boys.

List of Figures and Tables. Foreword. Preface. 1. The Importance of Home Remedies. 2. Dominica an... more List of Figures and Tables. Foreword. Preface. 1. The Importance of Home Remedies. 2. Dominica and Dominicans. 3. Bwa Mawego. 4. Methods. 5. Disease and Illness in Bwa Mawego. 6. Bwa Mawego"s Sectors of Healthcare. 7. Body Image in Bwa Mawego. 8. Bush Medicine in Bwa Mawego: Illnesses and their Treatments. 9. Applications and Conclusions. Appendix A. Appendix B. Appendix C. Glossary. Bibliography. Index.

The Cross-Cultural Dog Database includes texts and coded data for Electronic Human Relations Area... more The Cross-Cultural Dog Database includes texts and coded data for Electronic Human Relations Areas Files (eHRAF) Standard Cross-Cultural Sample (SCCS). Data covers 152 culture groups including observations provided by 904 ethnographers. The database is available in excel and tab delimited text files. Codebook and data descriptions are included. These data were used in Chambers, J., Quinlan, M., Evans, A., & Quinlan, R. 2020 Dog-human coevolution: Cross-cultural analysis of alternative hypotheses. Journal of Ethnobiology, 40(4), 414-433.

Journal of Ethnobiology, Mar 1, 2023

Bell & Howell Information and Learning eBooks, 2000

CRC Press eBooks, Jul 10, 2023

List of Figures and Tables. Foreword. Preface. 1. The Importance of Home Remedies. 2. Dominica an... more List of Figures and Tables. Foreword. Preface. 1. The Importance of Home Remedies. 2. Dominica and Dominicans. 3. Bwa Mawego. 4. Methods. 5. Disease and Illness in Bwa Mawego. 6. Bwa Mawego"s Sectors of Healthcare. 7. Body Image in Bwa Mawego. 8. Bush Medicine in Bwa Mawego: Illnesses and their Treatments. 9. Applications and Conclusions. Appendix A. Appendix B. Appendix C. Glossary. Bibliography. Index.

Economic Botany

Q'eqchi' Maya villagers in Alta Verapaz, Guatemala, grow informal homegardens alo... more Q'eqchi' Maya villagers in Alta Verapaz, Guatemala, grow informal homegardens alongside fieldbased horticultural subsistence activities. Villagers cultivate 200 + homegarden plants that serve many functions including provisioning food and medicine. Semi-structured "plant walk" interviews with 31 informants and follow-up interviews with nine villagers informed on the presence of cultivated medicinal plants and residents' knowledge of plant names and uses. This research analyzes garden ethnobotanical data ethnographically to understand factors differentiating local herbal remedy availability and use. Hypotheses test medicinal plant presence in dooryard gardens in relation to socio-demographic and acculturation variables. Results show a high degree of intra-village sharing and variation in medicinal plant cultivation. Significant predictors of medicinal plants in homegardens are (1) distance from the main road (p = 0.012) and (2) presence of paid work within the home (p = 0.002) as opposed to paid work outside the home (wage labor). Home medicinal plant cultivation reflects Maya cultural esteem for collectivism (sharing) and site-specific ecological fit. By cultivating a variety of medicinal plants and sharing with kin and neighbors, villagers treat local illnesses in ecologically and culturally advantageous ways.

The Cross-Cultural Dog Database includes texts and coded data for Electronic Human Relations Area... more The Cross-Cultural Dog Database includes texts and coded data for Electronic Human Relations Areas Files (eHRAF) Standard Cross-Cultural Sample (SCCS). Data covers 152 culture groups including observations provided by 904 ethnographers. The database is available in excel and tab delimited text files. Codebook and data descriptions are included. These data were used in Chambers, J., Quinlan, M., Evans, A., & Quinlan, R. 2020 Dog-human coevolution: Cross-cultural analysis of alternative hypotheses. Journal of Ethnobiology, 40(4), 414-433.

Monogamy appears to have become the predominant human mating system with the emergence of highly ... more Monogamy appears to have become the predominant human mating system with the emergence of highly unequal agricultural populations that replaced relatively egalitarian horticultural populations, challenging the conventional idea—based on the polygyny threshold model—that polygyny should be positively associated with wealth inequality. To address this polygyny paradox, we generalize the standard polygyny threshold model to a mutual mate choice model predicting the fraction of women married polygynously. We then demonstrate two conditions that are jointly sufficient to make monogamy the predominant marriage form, even in highly unequal societies. We assess if these conditions are satisfied using individual-level data from 29 human populations. Our analysis shows that with the shift to stratified agricultural economies: (i) the population frequency of relatively poor individuals increased, increasing wealth inequality, but decreasing the frequency of individuals with sufficient wealth to secure polygynous marriage, and (ii) diminishing marginal fitness returns to additional wives prevent extremely wealthy men from obtaining as many wives as their relative wealth would otherwise predict. These conditions jointly lead to a high population-level frequency of monogamy.

Journal of The Royal Society Interface, 2018

Monogamy appears to have become the predominant human mating system with the emergence of highly ... more Monogamy appears to have become the predominant human mating system with the emergence of highly unequal agricultural populations that replaced relatively egalitarian horticultural populations, challenging the conventional idea-based on the polygyny threshold model-that polygyny should be positively associated with wealth inequality. To address this polygyny paradox, we generalize the standard polygyny threshold model to a mutual mate choice model predicting the fraction of women married polygynously. We then demonstrate two conditions that are jointly sufficient to make monogamy the predominant marriage form, even in highly unequal societies. We assess if these conditions are satisfied using individual-level data from 29 human populations. Our analysis shows that with the shift to stratified agricultural economies: (i) the population frequency of relatively poor individuals increased, increasing wealth inequality, but decreasing the frequency of individuals with sufficient wealth to secure polygynous

Ethnobiology Letters

We report on the top three ethnopharmacological herbs growing among a lowland Guatemalan Q’eqchi... more We report on the top three ethnopharmacological herbs growing among a lowland Guatemalan Q’eqchi’ community’s homegardens. In a gardening culture characterized by pragmatic species distribution and sharing, these few herbaceous species recur in multiple households’ dooryard gardens. Our aim in reporting on the most predominant ethnobotanical herbs gardened in a Maya Q’eqchi’ village’s dooryards is to valorize the capacities of local pharmacological traditions. Thirty-one walking homegarden interviews and participant-observation inform this research with village residents. Té de limón (Cymbopogon winterianus, for cough, fever), Qa’mank/Tres punta (Neurolaena lobata, for diabetes, fever, headache, gastrointestinal ills, evil eye), and Ruda (Ruta chalepensis, for children’s vomiting, weepiness, evil eye) are the prevalent non-woody Q’eqchi’ homegarden herbs here. Regional ethnomedical and extant pharmacology research mutually support the efficacy and continued practicality of these Q’...

A Companion to Medical Anthropology, 2022

Handbook of Research Methods in Health Social Sciences, 2019

A freelist is a mental inventory of items an individual thinks of within a given category. Freeli... more A freelist is a mental inventory of items an individual thinks of within a given category. Freelists reveal cultural "salience" of particular notions within groups, and variation in individuals' topical knowledge across groups. The ease and accuracy of freelist interviewing, or freelisting, makes it ideal for collecting data on health knowledge and beliefs from relatively large samples. Successful freelisting requires researchers to break the research topic into honed categories. Research participants presented with broad prompts tend to "unpack" mental subcategories and may omit (forget) common items or categories. Researchers should find subdomains to present individually for participants to unpack in separate smaller freelists. Researchers may focus the freelist prompts through successive freelisting, pile sorts, or focus group-interviews. Written freelisting among literate populations allows for rapid data collection, possibly from multiple individuals simultaneously. Among nonliterate peoples, using oral freelists remains a relatively rapid method; however, interviewers must prevent bystanders from "contaminating" individual interviewees' lists. Researchers should cross

Handbook of Research Methods in Health Social Sciences, 2017

Adolescent Identity, 2012

This longitudinal study in Dominica documents rural youth (ages 3-18) of one village hamlet befor... more This longitudinal study in Dominica documents rural youth (ages 3-18) of one village hamlet before and after television service. Data was obtained through semi-structured interviews, freelisting, participant-observation, and time allocation recordings (gathered through random instantaneous behavior scans [spot checks]). A 2008 study, four years post-television, replicates research on household time allocation conducted in the same community in 1993-4, when the few television sets in the village were for video use only. Television viewing is a social activity in the study village. Television appears to liberalize gender views, especially among teens and young adults. Village youth prefer Disney and animated programming. Parents note improved school performance, and local and global awareness as benefits of television, but list provocative dress, aggression, and rude attitudes as the biggest changes in youth since television introduction. Comparative time allocation measures find that pre-television children spent twice as much time being “passive” (awake but no apparent activity), however, the correlation between television watching and time spent in frankly passive activity is not significant. Post- television, there is a negative correlation between time spent watching television and playing, and significant associations between age, sex and playing exist such that older children play 3% less per year than younger children, and boys play 13% more than do girls, who spend more time at home than do boys.

List of Figures and Tables. Foreword. Preface. 1. The Importance of Home Remedies. 2. Dominica an... more List of Figures and Tables. Foreword. Preface. 1. The Importance of Home Remedies. 2. Dominica and Dominicans. 3. Bwa Mawego. 4. Methods. 5. Disease and Illness in Bwa Mawego. 6. Bwa Mawego"s Sectors of Healthcare. 7. Body Image in Bwa Mawego. 8. Bush Medicine in Bwa Mawego: Illnesses and their Treatments. 9. Applications and Conclusions. Appendix A. Appendix B. Appendix C. Glossary. Bibliography. Index.