¿Quién me cuida?: Características de las interacciones entre los niños mayas yucatecos y sus cuidadores

Abstract

Psychology and anthropology study different aspects of child development separately in spite of sharing the challenge of explaining the relation nature-nurture. Based on sociocultural perspectives in developmental psychology and psychological anthropology, this paper analyzes the characteristics of the interactions between 2-year-old Yucatec Mayan children and their multiple caregivers, grouped in accordance to parental ethnotheories of development. Similar to other agrarian societies where adult work is not segregated from family life, results show that elder siblings are the second more important caregivers after the mother and suggest that mother-child interaction are characterized by tending to physical needs and physical contact whereas the child and other caregivers, especially elder siblings, engage in social interactions. Effects of the interaction type of agriculture (cash-cropping/milpa) by caregiver were also found and may be associated to differences in parental ethnotheories, degree of contact with the national society, economic resources available, and child nutritional status. In addition to presenting these results, I discuss the implications of integrating sociocultural perspectives in developmental Psychology, Psychological Anthropology, and Physical Anthropology for a comprehensive study of biological variability.