1st Edition

Researching Well-Being in an Indigenous Amazon Community A Detailed Survey of the Tsimane' Over Time

By Ricardo Godoy Copyright 2025
260 Pages 46 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

260 Pages 46 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

260 Pages 46 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

This book aims to provide the first comprehensive, multi‑year, systematic, quantitative assessment in the behavioral sciences of how well‑being changes over time in a small‑scale rural society of Indigenous People in the Global South. Using data compiled by the Tsimane’ Amazonian Panel Study (2002–010) that monitored change in Tsimane’ communities, this book analyzes economic, social, and... Read more

About the Author
Acknowledgements

Introduction
Chapter 1. Tsimane’, their neighbors, and Westerners: the past 500 years
Chapter 2. History and findings from TAPS and longitudinal studies in anthropology
Chapter 3. The setting and methods to gather information
Chapter 4. Asking what makes people happy and sad is a gateway into the perceived causes of subjective well-being
Chapter 5. Using food to assess well-being, income, and income inequality
Chapter 6. Farming, an indirect runway to Tsimane’ subjective well-being
Chapter 7. Well-being: staying healthy despite breakdowns
Chapter 8. Well-being: a world of limited and wilting sociality
Chapter 9. The marketplace: cash earnings, expenditures, swaps, and asset borrowing to bolster well-being.
Chapter 10. Economic inequalities and well-being: why yoke them?
Chapter 11. Takeaways and the future
Appendix A. Where to find TAPS datasets and the electronic report of the longitudinal study
Appendix B. A selective review of cross-sectional studies by the TAPS team

Biography

Ricardo Godoy is a Professor at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University. He holds a PhD in Anthropology from Columbia University. With William R. Leonard (Northwestern University) he helped to established the Tsimane’ Amazonian Panel Study (TAPS).