This book is
an outgrowth of the field research on the phenomenon of breastmilk
insufficiency in Esmeraldas, Ecuador (2008).
Theoretically speaking, in these pages, the reader will find a constant
link between the cultural and biological spheres, thus further developing the
interdisciplinary theory on the breastmilk insufficiency phenomenon.
Methodologically speaking, this book is based on data from a prospective
longitudinal study. This work is
expected to contribute not only to the literature of human biology and medical
anthropology, but also to the fields of geography, demography, medicine,
nursing, physiology and psychology, among others.
This book’s specific aims
are threefold: first, to elucidate, define, and analyze the phenomenon of
breastmilk insufficiency. Second, to
show breastfeeding data from a Latin America region –for scholars to have more
data to examine breastfeeding’s human ecology.
Third, to share the first-hand methodology and fieldwork techniques used
for many years, that can be replicated in further research.
Moreover,
this book broadens the ideas gleaned from the study of
breastfeeding to biological and cultural phenomena in general. Characterizing the interaction between
biological and cultural factors as a dance, these two types of factors are
explored in detail, while arguing that that they are not only inextricably
linked, but that they are part and parcel of a whole phenomenon made up of the
interaction between the two. It is also
argued that this dance is fundamentally changing the human experience, in terms
of both biology and culture –which have become so intertwined that they should
be given a new name, culbios.