Culture, Health and Development in South Asia
Culture, Health and Development in South Asia

Author: M. Saiful Islam

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-04-14

Total Pages: 166

ISBN-13: 1317226003

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Recently, mass arsenic poisoning of groundwater has emerged as a disastrous public health concern in Bangladesh. Apart from hundreds of deaths that have already been reported, 85 million people are estimated to be at high risk of developing deadly arsenicosis symptoms. The severity and extent of arsenicosis have obliged the government of Bangladesh to declare it the "worst national disaster" the country has ever faced, and further to be deemed a "state of emergency." To fight this pervasive public health disaster, the Bangladesh government has collaborated with the international and national NGOs to implement development projects to provide arsenic-free water to rural villagers. Drawing upon ethnographic research in rural Southwestern Bangladesh, this book discusses arsenic contamination and its resultant health impact from a medical anthropological and anthropology of development perspectives. It examines how the actual patients perceive, explain, manage and respond to this catastrophic public health outbreak, and goes on to analyse how such lay perceptions shape health-seeking behaviour of subjects in a medically plural context. To make the issue more holistic, this book further examines mitigation strategies and community participation in these projects. Challenging approaches to development and development project management, the book is of interest to policy makers, practitioners and academics working in the field of development studies, South Asian studies, medical anthropology, anthropology and sociology of development.

Health, Culture and Religion in South Asia
Health, Culture and Religion in South Asia

Author: Assa Doron

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-09-13

Total Pages: 164

ISBN-13: 1317988388

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Health, Culture and Religion in South Asia brings together top international scholars from a range of social science disciplines to critically explore the interplay of local cultural and religious practices in the delivery and experiences of health in South Asia. This groundbreaking text provides much needed insight into the relationships between health, culture, community, livelihood, and the nation-state, and in particular, the recent struggles of disadvantaged groups to gain access to health care in South Asia. The book brings together anthropologists, sociologists, economists, health researchers and development specialists to provide the reader with an interdisciplinary approach to the study of South Asian health and a comprehensive understanding of cutting edge research in this area. Addressing key issues affecting a range of geographical areas including India, Nepal and Pakistan, this text will be essential reading for students and researchers interested in Asian Studies and for those interested in gaining a better understanding of health in developing countries. This book was published as a special issue of South Asian History and Culture.

Curried Cultures
Curried Cultures

Author: Krishnendu Ray

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2012-05-01

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 0520952243

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Although South Asian cookery and gastronomy has transformed contemporary urban foodscape all over the world, social scientists have paid scant attention to this phenomenon. Curried Cultures–a wide-ranging collection of essays–explores the relationship between globalization and South Asia through food, covering the cuisine of the colonial period to the contemporary era, investigating its material and symbolic meanings. Curried Cultures challenges disciplinary boundaries in considering South Asian gastronomy by assuming a proximity to dishes and diets that is often missing when food is a lens to investigate other topics. The book’s established scholarly contributors examine food to comment on a range of cultural activities as they argue that the practice of cooking and eating matter as an important way of knowing the world and acting on it.

Perspectives on Modern South Asia
Perspectives on Modern South Asia

Author: Kamala Visweswaran

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2011-05-06

Total Pages: 398

ISBN-13: 1405100621

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Perspectives on Modern South Asia presents an exciting core collection of essays drawn from anthropology, literary and cultural studies, history, sociology, economics, and political science to reveal the complexities of a region that is home to a fifth of humanity. Presents an interdisciplinary overview of the origins and development of the eight nations comprising modern South Asia: Afghanistan, Bhutan, Bangladesh, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka Explores South Asia’s common cultures, languages and religions and their relationship to its ethnic and national differences Features essays that provide understandings of the central dynamics of South Asia as an important cultural, political, and economic region of the world

The Sociology of South Asian Women’s Health
The Sociology of South Asian Women’s Health

Author: Sara Rizvi Jafree

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-08-06

Total Pages: 229

ISBN-13: 303050204X

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This contributed volume is the first-known collection of essays that brings together scholarly review, critiques, and primary and secondary data to assess how sociocultural factors influence health behavior in South Asian women. The essays are authored by working scholars or healthcare practitioners from Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. In the chapters, the contributors acknowledge social, economic, and environmental factors to recommend improved interventions and health policy for women of the region. Studies on South Asian women’s health have targeted clinical evidence, with less attention on social and environmental factors driving health recovery and health outcomes. The South Asian region, more than any other part of the world, is driven by traditional and cultural forces that are possibly the most significant factors determining a woman’s health awareness and her rights to adopt healthy behavior or pursue health recovery. Women of the region share a common culture and political history, and there are benefits to understanding their problems collectively in order to design joint improvements in health policy for women. Salient, but neglected, socio-political areas that influence health behavior and health outcomes in women of the region are covered in the chapters including: Oral Narrations of Social Rejection Suffered by South Asian Women with Irreversible Health Conditions Women’s Role in Decision-Making for Health Care in South Asia Poverty, Health Coverage, and Credit Opportunities for South Asian Women Refugee, Displaced, and Climate-Affected Women of South Asia and Their Health Challenges The Political Sociology of South Asian Women’s Health The Sociology of South Asian Women’s Health is a useful resource for students, researchers, and academicians, especially those interested in public health, gender, social policy, and occupational management, as well as healthcare practitioners, administrators, health and public policy-makers, government officers, and scholars of South Asian studies.

Socio-Cultural Insights of Childbirth in South Asia
Socio-Cultural Insights of Childbirth in South Asia

Author: Sabitra Kaphle

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-07-29

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 1000417018

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This book analyses the significant socio-cultural factors impacting childbirth experiences of women living in remote and complex social settings. This book challenges the notion that childbirth is a universal biological event which women experience in their reproductive lives and provides an in-depth social perspective of understanding childbirth. Drawing on evocative stories of women living in the Himalayas, the author discusses how childbirth should be supported to enable women to take control and ownership of their experiences. Based on extensive research undertaken in remote mountain regions of Nepal, the book provides evidence for and discussion of childbirth in the context of other countries, cultures and communities. Utilising a feminist perspective, this book critiques medical control of childbirth and argues in favour of giving power to women so that they can make decisions which are right for them. In doing so, the author unpacks complexities associated with women’s lives in remote communities and highlights the significance of addressing broader determinants impacting birth outcomes and valuing childbirth traditions to ensure cultural safety for women, families and societies. Through exploring the wide range of factors influencing women and their childbirth experiences, this book offers a new model for childbirth that policy makers, practitioners, communities, educators, researchers and other professionals can use to make childbirth an empowering experience for women. It will be of interest to academics and professionals in the fields of public health, midwifery, health promotion, sociology and South Asian Studies.

Rethinking Development in South Asia
Rethinking Development in South Asia

Author: AMIR MOHAMMAD. NASRULLAH

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2022-02

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 9781527577152

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This book challenges the way development has been conceptualized and practiced in South Asian context, and argues for its deconstruction in a way that would allow freedom, choice and greater well-being for the local people. Far from taking development for granted as growth and advancement, this book unveils how development could also be a destructive force to local socio-cultural and environmental contexts. With a critical examination of such conventional development practices as hegemonic, patriarchal, devastating and failure, it highlights how the rethinking of development could be seen as a matter of practice by incorporating peopleâ (TM)s interest, priorities and participation. The book theoretically challenges the conventional notion of hegemonic development and proposes alternative means, and, practically, provides nuances of ethnographic knowledge which will be of great interest to policy planners, development practitioners, educationists and anyone interested in knowing more about how people think about their own development.

Anthropology and International Health
Anthropology and International Health

Author: M. Nichter

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-11-11

Total Pages: 319

ISBN-13: 9400922310

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In this book I present a series of eleven essays written between 1978 and 1987 on subjects relevant to the anthropology of health and international health. The issues addressed in these essays were investigated during 38 months of fieldwork in rural southwest peninsular India (197 4-86) and 15 months of fieldwork in southwest Sri Lanka (1983-84 ). ;During various periods of this time I conducted ethnographic fieldwork, explored the feasibility of participatory community research, facilitated the development of a postgraduate health education training program, and served as a consultant to various international health organizations. The essays document my ongoing attempts to integrate academic interests in the anthropology of health with applications of anthropology for international health and development. The volume is divided into four sections structured around the themes of: ethnophysiology, illness ethnography, pharmaceutical related behavior, and health communication. Included are studies of fertility and pregnancy (Chapters 1 and 2), states of malnutrition and approaches to nutrition education (Chapters 5 and 11 ), diarrheal disease and water boiling behavior (Chapters 6 and 1 0), and lay perceptions of fertility control methods and medicines (Chapters 3 and 7). Emerging from these studies is a recognition that perceptions of ethnophysiology and contingent health concerns signifi cantly influence health behavior and the use as well as demand for traditional and modern health resources.

Culture, Democracy, and Development in South Asia
Culture, Democracy, and Development in South Asia

Author: N. N. Vohra

Publisher:

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13:

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The Future Peace And Prosperity Of South Asia Hinges On Various Factors, The More Significant Among Which Are : A Deepening Of The Process Of Democratic Participation; The Spread Of The Development Process To All Socioeconomic Strata; And Accelerated Reg