The current concept of social resilience, which developed from the classic definition of resilience, neglects social resilience as a social phenomenon including social experiences and practices in the face of change and adversity. I argue that framing social resilience as a capacity or ability undermines its characteristics as a complex and contextualized social phenomenon that contributes to adaptive and transformative abilities in the context of migrants' lived experiences. In this article, I present a social constructionist approach to conceptualize social resilience. From a life course perspective, I emphasize on migrants' lived experiences. In this context, I describe status, network, support, and visibility as four institutionally embedded dimensions of social resilience that interconnect environmental factors to impact social experiences and practices. Social resilience is a phenomenon characterized by migrants' lived experiences marked by uncertainty and turning points embodied in the host country's political, economic, cultural, and social contexts - Learn More
How does a child contribute to the well-being and social position of the family in the community? This broader question excavates the social meanings of fertility, pregnancy, birth, and infancy shifting the focus of economic and demographic theories on the value of the children to the social value of the child.
This essay offers a synopsis of the social value of the child and the social construction of the value of the child in the global south. This brief article concludes that studies emphasizing the value of the children in the global south should investigate the intricate and relevant interconnections between the psychological, familial, and religious value of the child, all of which contribute to the social value of the child - Learn More
Risk Perception and Protective Behavior in the Context of COVID-19: a Qualitative Exploration
(2021)
(2021)
As a result of the devastating health effects of the COVID-19 outbreak, the lockdown has been considered a safety measure in many countries. In Pakistan, the first case of COVID-19 was reported in February 2020. The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate people’s risk perception and protective behavior during the lockdown. Twenty-two (22) participants from eight big cities across Pakistan were interviewed. A six-step reflective thematic analysis was used for data analysis. The study focused on risk perception and protective behaviors. Our main analytical goal was to understand how risk perception shapes human behavior in the context of lockdown, pandemic-related information flow, and corresponding meaning-making. The study revealed that people influenced by information and advice campaigns form a perception of risk that has shaped their protective behavior. They used familiar means of coping with distress, including the search for strength through religious belief practices and following the precautions recommended by health professionals through the media.
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Using my own teaching experience in quarantined at-home settings, I describe and reflect on my e-learning plan and its implementation. I am teaching two groups of undergraduate students consisting of 80 students. I have taught half of the course content during the first half of the semester in a formal university setting. However, after the novel corona breakout, we are engaged in online teaching. In line with university guidelines and available support, I initiated my e-learning plan based on blended learning and led by the core objectives to maintain accessibility and quality. Using asynchronous and synchronous modes I used common and easily available options to enhance two-way teacher and student communication. The feedback that I received after three weeks of implementation of my e-learning plan proved my understanding of the study context as workable and realistic. My conceptual models about the objectives leading the e-learning plan and the implementation model presented in this article can be helpful for the teachers teaching social sciences for the first time in ‘quarantined’ settings.
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The Punjabi postpartum tradition is called sawa mahina (‘five weeks’). This study investigates infant health care belief practices in rural Punjab and looks at the social significance of infant care beliefs practiced during sawa mahina. During six months of fieldwork, using participant observation and unstructured interviews as primary research methods, the study explored the prevalent postpartum tradition from a childcare perspective. A Punjabi child holds a social value regarding familial, religious, and emotional values. The five-week traditional postpartum period provides an insight into mother–child attachment, related child care belief practices, and the social construction of infancy. A child’s agency is recognised in the embodied mother–child relationship, and a child is seen in a sympathetic connection with the mother. Establishing an early foundation of ascribed identities is another important part of postpartum belief practices.
In the West, childhood is considered a right of children to be free from adult-world responsibilities. However, in a non-Western context, children with gradual progress in their biological age and physical development participate in the adult world according to their livelihood conditions and social context. They are perceived as competent to play that role and contribute to household and livelihood activities. In the rural context, children are seen as active social actors with agency and they are not separated from the adult world. Their participation is perceived as a process of socialization for becoming future adults. Hence, a rural child is an active and agentic „being‟ but in connection with its social context it is a „becoming‟ for its social upbringing and family well-being. After a review of some recent theoretical developments and case studies from various other parts of the world, this paper presents some findings from my own field research in Pakistan.
Informal education plays an important role in social construction of childhood. As gender is widely accepted classification of human being in male and female, the debates go beyond its natural status and place gender as social construct. This article gives a presentation of research reflection regarding the role of informal education in gender learning in traditional rural society of the Punjab. Research is based in the empirical data collected through fieldwork. Findings uncover the social and cognitive learning system of informal education that start working before birth, finally constructing gendered identity and role description.
Attending a doll's marriage ceremony was one of those encounters that refreshed my fieldwork memories while also providing insight into child socialization through play activities. An ethnographer's scientific task after fieldwork is to read, describe, and interpret the pictures. As a student and researcher in childhood studies, I was fascinated by the pictures' explicit and implicit details. Hence, I developed a picture reading technique that I used to read pictures as field notes. I named this technique 'SAFSI,' which stands for See, Ask, Find, See, and Interpret. Here, I elaborate on this process by using my participation in a doll's marriage as an example. -
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In a brief time, COVID-19 has changed the global picture. In the context of this pandemic, people are experiencing anxiety and fears. These fears of people are intensified by several factors, such as personal experience of disease, the stigmatization they faced, and rejection they endured.
Different theoretical perspectives explained the fear, ranging from death anxiety to stigmatization and from social exclusion to family estrangement. The purpose of this study was to understand how "corona fear" is psychologically and socially constructed. 24 COVID-19 survivors' stories were selected from known e-newspapers such as Arab News, Times Herald, Express Tribune, Dawn News, India Today, BBC News, and Aljazeera News of different countries: Pakistan, China, South Korea, Argentina, South Africa, Nigeria, and Michigan. Using conventional qualitative content analysis, the narratives were analyzed. The results showed four major themes: Risk perception, death anxiety, social stigma, and psychological crisis. It was evident that corona patients bore double pain; physical pain due to the disease, and emotional pain due to social rejection and discrimination. Health care authorities can join hands with mental health professionals to implement programs resolving psychological crises and stigmatization which can help overcome such elements. By this study, we assume that a sociolinguistic analysis of the narrative accounts of COVID-19 patients and their caregivers can provide rich data related to language situated in pandemic contexts.
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This study aimed to investigate the responses of university students (late adolescents) about their conceptualization of a child, exploring the characteristics they associate with being a child. The study was conducted in two phases. In phase 1, responses to one open-ended question, what is a child? (N=75), were analyzed using qualitative content analysis. In phase 2, students (N=90) filled in an online closed-ended survey that was derived from the subthemes that emerged from the qualitative data collected in phase 1. Findings revealed multiple interconnected aspects of the conceptualization of the child, making it a complex whole. This study is helpful for understanding the concept of the child grounded in various theoretical and mythological categories that portray the complexities of existing dichotomies that often come up as interconnected in traditional societies.
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In last few decades, the native anthropology has been highlighted for its potential to immediately grasping cultural familiarity, contextual sensitivity, and rapport building. Nevertheless, detachment from the native context is also seen as a challenge for the native researcher. This paper aims to provide invaluable information about the fieldwork experience of the author as a native researcher in rural Punjab Pakistan. The author presents and reflects the fieldwork challenges faced and the strategies used to overcome the challenges. The primary objective of this paper is to discuss the methodological strategies to face the challenges of doing at-home ethnography. This paper is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in native context. Dealing with contextual complexity and sensitivity with the author’s native learning, the author used native knowledge as a useful resource to investigate insider’s perspective on infant care belief practices. Furthermore, the author addressed the challenges related to building rapport, gaining friendly access to the families and children, and setting aside presumptions. The author discusses the strategies opted, such as selecting a research assistant, gaining access to the field, planning fieldwork and bracketing native presumptions. This paper provides important insight of at-home ethnography and technical understanding to conduct fieldwork in native contexts. Based on my ethnographic fieldwork, this article contributes in contemporary debates on the challenges in doing at-home ethnography.
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The belief in the evil eye is associated with feelings of envy that brings harm to children. In Punjabi Muslim culture the evil eye is a threat to a child’s health before and after birth. This article investigates the “evil eye” belief and protective measures adopted by Punjabis to refract it. The study was conducted in a Pakistani Punjabi village. Findings reveal a dominant magico-religious approach, along with gradually diminishing folk remedies.
Consulting religion and magic for healing is an important aspect of healing belief practices. Magical thinking provides space for culturally cognitive patterns to integrate belief practices. Tona, a layman’s approach to healing that describes magico-religious (fusion of magic and religion) and secular magic practices in rural Punjab, Pakistan, is an example of magico-religious and secular magical practice. The purpose of this study is to analyse tona as it is practiced to cure childhood diseases (sokra and sharwa) in Muslim Punjab, Pakistan. This is an ethnographic study I conducted using participant observation and unstructured interviews as the primary research methods. The study produced an in-depth analysis of tona as a healing belief practice in the light of Frazer’s principles of magical thinking and sympathetic magic. The study provides a deeper understanding of the magical thinking in magico-religious healing belief practices.
Pregnancy is considered a special period in a woman’s life. There are myths about pregnancy that describe gender predictions, dietary beliefs, pregnancy signs, and risk of magic or witchcraft. Majority of these myths is in connection with the early childcare. In traditional societies midwives and experienced women practice and teach these myths to young mothers. Mother who feel special and vulnerable, at the same time feel secure in following these socially transmitted myths. Rural Punjab, a province of Pakistan has a culture rich with beliefs and myths. Myths about pregnancy are significant in rural culture and pregnancy care is seen as mother and childcare. This paper presents my research reflections that I did as a part of my Ph.D studies about early childcare beliefs and rituals practiced in rural Punjab, Pakistan.
This essay offers a synopsis of the social value of the child and the social construction of the value of the child in the global south. This brief article concludes that studies emphasizing the value of the children in the global south should investigate the intricate and relevant interconnections between the psychological, familial, and religious value of the child, all of which contribute to the social value of the child- Learn More
The study aims to explore the evil eye belief practices among Saraiki mothers in a village in South Punjab, Pakistan. This study unfolds three aspects of the evil eye phenomenon; first, the ‘diagnosis’ of the evil eye that constitute the ineffectiveness of the available modern medicine, second the socio-cultural nexus of folk medical system and unmanageable or unexplained threats, and third the protective and remedial practices that disclose indigenous healthcare culture. Using semi-structured interviews and interpretative phenomenological analysis, five interviews were conducted and analyzed. Findings revealed the perceived failure of the available modern medicine when the evil eye effects are diagnosed. People religiously believe in the evil eye and relate it with the feelings of envy that bring harm to the child by resisting the effects of any medicine and internal immunity. The study concludes jealousy, hatred, and deprivation as primary causes, and religious and folk remedial practices provide a magico-religious shield allowing the effectiveness of other medical interventions. This study brings to light the need for cultural competence of medical professionals while working in indigenous communities where modern medicine cannot work if it is not gradually replacing or working in-line with the folk medical beliefs.
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In Pakistani society family as a unit of the socio-cultural system is a primary institution for children upbringing and socialization. However, in the last few decades with the increased divorce rate in Pakistani families, the psychosocial wellbeing of women and children is badly affected. In Pakistani socio-cultural context divorce and adjustment after divorce are big issues for a woman. The present study is focused on the subjective experiences of the divorced women regarding the reasons for divorce, its impact on their lives, and later adjustment. Six divorced women with children were interviewed using a semi-structured interview guide. To explore their lived experiences Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was used for data analysis. The emergent themes provided the reasons for divorce such as in-laws interference, lack of mutual understanding, financial exploitation, and torturous environment. The impact of divorce on women’s lives included social stigmatization, psychological pain, economic crisis, and remarriage issues. Findings also revealed the perceptions about divine accountability, matrilineal support, and the value of children as coping resources for later adjustment. The findings of the study are helpful for family counselors, educators, public and private social welfare organizations who are engaged in family-related issues.
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The ‘Child’ is a value-laden concept in rural Punjabi society with foremost pronatal values. The woman is primarily responsible for childbearing. Fertility is valued for the social value of the child that raises the status of the woman as woman-being and a mother. It is believed that the child removes the curse of childlessness and sets a woman from social demotion. Infertility or other related issues that cause congruent child mortality are serious and often perceived as Athra, an “evil sickness” to be cured by religious healing. This ethnographic study investigates perceptions of rural Punjabi women about the socially valued child and the fears attached to Athra. This study was conducted in a village in southern Punjab. The study explores the social value of the child, the status of the mother, the ‘unexplained’ nature of Athra, and its contagious effects.
This article deals with the concept of honor, shame and modesty of an Indian woman as depicted in popular Hindi movies and as described in religious and cultural traditions. A woman has to obey certain cultural and traditional norms to secure her Laj. This article offers a socio-cultural analysis of a Hindi movie Lajja released in 2001, specifically focused on an Indian woman’s religious and social status in Indian society and underlying discriminations. This movie is distinctive because it brings to light different themes about a woman’s status (e.g. Husband’s lordship vs. Woman’s dignity and self-respect, female infanticide, dowry, exploitation, and class discrimination) in India while targeting atrocities committed against Indian women. This article describes the mainly feminine concept ‘Laj’ in the light of the themes as depicted in the movie and as presented in Hindu religious and cultural traditions.
Evil is a power that may possess a human to commit sins. Evil is all negative, conflicting and opposing to the all positive ‘good’. Religious descriptions of evil and good often relate it to the opposing forces led by the Devil and God respectively where human is weak and vulnerable. Arrogance and envy are two satanic traits that occupy human nature to deviate him from the ‘good’. Islam describes a variety of evil acts that cause destruction, disobedience, tyranny and hopelessness in human societies. According to Islamic traditions, arrogance and envy are satanic obsessions. The evil eye is one of the evils triggered by envious self of the human under the influence of the Evil (Satan). Humans, under the obsession of this evil, may bring harm to their fellow men, intentionally orunintentionally. Since health and prosperity is valuable for survival, the evil eye can destroy them. Humans can overcome these obsessions only with the blessing of God
and invoking their innate righteousness. Humans can protect themselves from the harmful and destructive effects of the evil eye, if they trust in God and seek His refuge. Islam emphasizes the Quran having healing and protective powers, and recommends following the Islamic traditions set by the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) and advised in Quran to gain protection and cure.
and invoking their innate righteousness. Humans can protect themselves from the harmful and destructive effects of the evil eye, if they trust in God and seek His refuge. Islam emphasizes the Quran having healing and protective powers, and recommends following the Islamic traditions set by the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) and advised in Quran to gain protection and cure.
