| As part of a small-scale, egalitarian society in the Ecuadorian Amazon, the village of Conambo has no institutionalized positions of authority. Political and civil action consists of collective consensus building towards conflict resolution and problem solving. Patton and Bowser have shown that resolution is reached by the careful negotiation of complex social networks, and men and women actively draw upon their knowledge of these networks to mediate a broad spectrum of potential conflict situations. Utilizing the punctuated development model developed by Bock, within the larger framework of the life history theory presented by Kaplan and associates, this study shows that children in Conambo display knowledge of the social networks utilized by adults, and that this knowledge reveals investments in experience-based embodied capital necessary for competency as Conambo adults. Building on previous studies of embodied capital, this study makes the following predictions: 1. Higher status and alliance competency will be associated with higher levels of experience-based embodied capital, operationalized as age. 2. Status competency will be higher and less variable than alliance competency for both males and females of all ages. 3. Males will exhibit greater alliance competency than females. Based on field data collected in 2008, this study shows that male alliance competency increases with age, female status competency increases with age, females exhibit greater alliance competency than males, and males exhibit greater status competency than alliance competency. |
