KWASHIOKOR ON KILIMANJARO

Abstract

The problem of hunger has rarely been a focus of ethnography with the notable exception of Turnbull's study of the Ugandan Ik. This thesis deals with childhood malnutrition among another East African mountain people, the Chagga of. Mt. Kilimanjaro, Tanzania. It is also based on four and a half years of participant observation and three multidisciplinary studies conducted on Kilimanjaro by the author. Although the Chagga are considered relatively prosperous compared with other - East African peoples, the shift to cash crops and wage labor and a highly uneven distribution of income has given rise to poverty and a high incidence of kwashiorkor. The thesis examines the cultural contradictions and social processes which effect the distribution of poverty among households and the distribution of kwashiorkor among siblings and which shape the settings in which individuals attempt to cope with this affliction.