ABSTRACT
This chapter approaches the complex, dynamic, and multiscale relationships entailed in the politics and ecologies of health holistically, treating health as one of multiple competing investment priorities for households occupying smallholder frontiers. We draw upon insights from theory viewing health as a form of human capital (Grossman 1972) and poverty as a lack of ability to invest (Reardon and Vosti 1995), and from demographic research pointing to the long-term payoffs to early life health (Hayward and Gorman 2004). Health for us is thus not the lack of an event (e.g. disease, malnutrition) but a dynamic process of household investment in nutrition, preventative medicine, and appropriate treatment of disease (Berman et al. 1994). Our approach merges these insights with the livelihoods research tradition (Ellis 1998; de Sherbinin et al. 2008) and considers the multiple capitals influencing the capabilities of smallholder families to avoid illness and improve health (Bebbington 1999).
