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CULTURAL NORMS, ROUTINES, AND PRACTICES all affect parenting and infant development.  These are especially evident in sleeping, feeding, and socializing behaviors. 

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CULTURAL NORMS, ROUTINES, AND PRACTICES all affect parenting and infant development.  These are especially evident in sleeping, feeding, and socializing behaviors. 

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Carrying an infant in a sling represents the proximal style of parenting, more commonly found in hunter-gatherer communities

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Carrying an infant in a sling represents the proximal style of parenting, more commonly found in hunter-gatherer communities

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In the Aka community, fathers have such a strong role in infant caregiving, that an Aka infant who is born without a known father usually dies within six months.

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The Aka or Bayaka (also BiAka, Babenzele) are a nomadic Mbenga pygmy people. They live in southwestern Central African Republic and in northern Republic of the Congo. An ecologically diverse people, they occupy 11 different ecological zones of the Western Congo Basin. They are related to the Baka people of Cameroon, Gabon, northern Congo, and southwestern Central African Republic.

Unlike the Mbuti pygmies of the eastern Congo (who speak only the language of the tribes with whom they are affiliated), the Aka speak their own language along with whichever of the approximately 15 Bantu peoples they are affiliated.

In 2003, the oral traditions of the Aka were proclaimed one of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO. They were featured in the July 1995 National Geographic article "Ndoki: the Last Place on Earth".

A traditional hunter-gatherer society, the Aka have a varied diet that includes sixty-three plants, twenty-eight species of game and twenty species of insect, in addition to nuts, fruit, honey, mushrooms and roots. Some Aka have recently taken up the practice of planting their own small seasonal crops, but agricultural produce is more commonly obtained by trading with neighboring villages, whom the Aka collectively term as Ngandu.

From the Ngandu, they obtain manioc, plantain, yams, taro, maize, cucumbers, squash, okra, papaya, mango, pineapple, palm oil, and rice in exchange for the bushmeat, honey, and other forest products the Aka collect. There are over 15 different village tribes with whom the approximately 30,000 Aka associate.

As a result of their hunter-gatherer lifestyle, which frequently exposes them to the blood of jungle fauna, they have among the highest rates of seropositivity for Ebola virus in the world.

Fathers of the Aka tribe spend more time in close contact to their babies than in any other known society. Aka fathers have their infant within arms' reach 47% of the time and make physical contact with them five times as often per day as fathers in some other societies. The men also help the women, by feeding their children. It is believed that this is related to the strong bond between Aka husband and wife. Throughout the day, couples share hunting, food preparation, and social and leisure activities.

The lifestyle of the Aka has been shifted from their traditional customs by European colonialism. The slave trade of the 18th century caused the migration of several tribes into Aka lands. These tribes subsequently became affiliated with the Aka. By the end of the 19th century, the Aka were the major elephant hunters providing tusks for the ivory trade. Affiliated tribes acted as middlemen in these transactions.

From 1910 to 1940, the Aka lands were part of French Equatorial Africa, and nearby affiliated tribes were forced into rubber production by the colonialists. These laborers occasionally escaped into forests inhabited by the Aka, increasing the demand for bushmeat. To meet this demand, the Aka developed the more efficient method of net hunting to replace traditional spear hunting. This caused a change in the social structure of the Aka: net hunting was seen as less physically challenging than using spears to kill game, and so women were encouraged take part in hunting activities.

In the 1930s, the French pressed the Aka to move into roadside villages. However, like the Efé of the Ituri rainforest, most Aka disobeyed and retreated into the jungle, with few joining the new settlements (except for a few villages in Congo-Brazza).

Today, economic pressures have forced the Aka to further deviate from their traditional customs. Many Aka now work in the coffee plantations of neighbouring tribes during the dry season instead of hunting as they would have done, and others have found employment in the ivory and lumber trade.

The World Wildlife Fund of Washington, DC, has worked with the Aka since the 1980s to protect gorilla habitats, minimize logging of forest, and promote other conservation efforts while empowering the Aka and other indigenous peoples. (needs to be evaluated)

Their complex polyphonic music has been studied by various ethnomusicologists. Simha Arom has made historical field recordings of some of their repertoire. Michelle Kisliuk has written a detailed performance ethnography. Mauro Campagnoli studied their musical instruments in depth, comparing them to neighbouring pygmy groups such as the Baka Pygmies.

Aka musicians appear on African Rhythms ( György Ligeti, Steve Reich and Pierre-Laurent Aimard, 2003), Echoes of the Forest: Music of the Central African Pygmies (Ellipsis Arts, 1995), BOYOBI: Ritual Music of the Rainforest Pygmies (Louis Sarno, 2000), and Bayaka: The Extraordinary Music of the BaBenzele Pygmies (Louis Sarno, 1996).

Song from the Forest by German director Michael Obert tells the story of American Louis Sarno who has lived among the Bayaka pygmies in the central African rainforest for 25 years and travels with his son, 13-year-old pygmy boy Samedi, to New York City. The film premiered at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam 2013 where it was honored with the Award for Best Feature-Length Documentary.

Other Pygmy groups

Anthropologists studying the Aka

Seize the Dance! BaAka Musical Life and the Ethnography of Performance by Michelle Kisliuk (Oxford University Press, 2000).

Song from the Forest -- My Life Among the Ba-Benjellé Pygmies by Louis Sarno (Houghton Mifflin 1993).

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The Aka or Bayaka (also BiAka, Babenzele) are a nomadic Mbenga pygmy people. They live in southwestern Central African Republic and in northern Republic of the Congo. An ecologically diverse people, they occupy 11 different ecological zones of the Western Congo Basin.

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This video of Baby Flora demonstrates the distal style of parenting, more commonly found in the US and more developed countries. Face-to-face interactions between adult and infant, believed to promote independence, self-control and autonomy.

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ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDIES were conducted around the world to learn about how ecology and economy affects parenting and the types of traits that evolved in children, i.e. independence or interdependence.  

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ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDIES were conducted around the world to learn about how ecology and economy affects parenting and the types of traits that evolved in children, i.e. independence or interdependence.  

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Is parenting intuitive? How does culture influence the first few months of a child's life?
"Ontogenetic Niche" refers to caregiving in a cultural context--the dynamic system in which the developing child is continuously contributing to the interplay between humans and culture. A baby's development is largely affected by the specific type of parenting he receives, which fosters a pathways for his future, both in social context and regarding his parents' goals for his life.

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As a child experiences their world, the biological process of brain development is guided toward maturation. Thus there is no way to separate development that occurs through learning and maturation.

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1896-1934

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Explanation of test:  An object is hidden in the same location (location A) several times, and an infant will find it each time. Once the infant sees the object hidden in a new location (location B), he will usually continue to look for the object in location A. Normally, the infant will begin to correctly search in location B by the time he reaches the age of one.

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Collin Testing and Psychological Services

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A Typical 10-month-old on Piaget's A-not-B task

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Exploration             Attachment System             Security
&            ---------          Balancing         ---------          &

Comfort Comfort

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Bowlby's proposal for infant's control through feedback

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Bowlby's proposal for infant's control through feedback

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"we should interpret an infant's behavior in terms of the environment in which our species evolved, the 'environment of evolutionary adaptedness" (Packer 187)

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Three Responses to Separation:
1) protest
2) despair & depression
3) detachment

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-The caretaker and infant form an affective communication system through which they affect each other's emotional states throughout life.
-"...The infant's ability to detect contingencies provides the basis for the subtle interactions with caregivers that involve her in her family and culture from the very start" (Packer 141).

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-"Characteristic inclinations or tendencies" (Packer 140)

-"...a tendency to respond with certain contingencies to specific events. The ability to grasp dispositions by detecting contingencies is an example of how a person's behavior can be understood without having to infer mental beliefs and desires, or even wishes and goals" (Packer 140).

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Different Theories of the First Year of Life

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Different Theories of the First Year of Life

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Vygotsky's "Great-We" Conciousness of Infancy

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Vygotsky's "Great-We" Conciousness of Infancy

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-"He (the infant) lives, but he is not conscious of his life himself" (Packer 139).
-"...for an infant the adult is at the center of every situation, and as adults come and go this 'arms and disarms the activity of the child'" (Packer 139).
-Seemingly futile efforts of the infant could possibly be an attempt of the infant to elicit the help of their caretaker.

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System 1 handles unconscious processing (nature), while interaction with caretakers and environment (nurture) are crucial for system 2. The two systems have a dynamic relationship and are both necessary.

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Adults need to and can adapt to the child's language because language is so limited for an infant. Due to the adult's large vocabulary, we can adjust our level of comprehension and communicate in various ways to meet the needs of the child.

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Famed linguist who worked with his son Nigel to help identify 4 phases of language. Within phase  1 , there are 6 functions of language. (See chart on page 183)

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1) Sounds
2) Words
3) Sentences
4) Utterances

Each level is a code that the child needs to crack

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System in which sequences of sounds, acoustic wave patterns count as words, which in turn stand for classes or categories of objects and events in the world.   (pg. 180)

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As crawling moves into walking there are changes in the perception, spacial cognition, and social emotional behavior of thee child. In broader terms, the child moves from egocentric to allocentric and there are changes in the patterns of information she receives.

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Discrepancies in timeline of milestones based on different cultures 

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Discrepancies in timeline of milestones based on different cultures 

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Walking is the _psychological birth_ of the infant -Margaret Mahler (1)

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Transition at 1 year: Biological Differentiation

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Transition at 1 year: Biological Differentiation

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2 Highly Important Achievements
1) Walking
2) Talking

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"...the brain's central pathways involved in sensory-motor intelligence, pathways which are involved in an infant's growing understanding of what things are and how they are arranged in space" (Packer 174).

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From the womb to around middle childhood.

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Milestones of Motor Development During Infancy

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Milestones of Motor Development During Infancy

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The growth depicted in this table depends on the context in which the child exists.

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Piaget's Early Substages of Sensorimotor Intelligence

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Piaget's Early Substages of Sensorimotor Intelligence

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THE EARLY SUBSTAGES OF SENSORIMOTOR INTELLIGENCE

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Darwin’s photos of his son’s expressions of emotion

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Infant Sensitivity to Contingency Patterns of face-to-face interactions

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Infant Sensitivity to Contingency Patterns of face-to-face interactions

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"'All humans are capable of detecting rhythmic impulses and qualities of other persons' behaviors that are contingent upon and related emotionally to their own expressions'" (Packer 140 on Gergely & Watson, 199).