Children of Tribal Unwed Mothers and Their Non-Legitimate Origin: A Social Exclusion Perspective

Shanuga Cherayi,Justin P Jose,Sreejith Sudhakar

doi:10.1177/2158244019850041

Abstract

Using phenomenological design, we purposively selected 10 children of tribal unwed mothers for in-depth interview to explore children’s social identity in the context of non-legitimate origin, aspects of psychosocial disability, and exclusion. We analyzed data through open coding, progressive focusing, coding frame, summarizing, and interpreting the findings. The results reveal that tribal communities actively, though indirectly, engage in social system maintenance. The children of unwed mothers explicitly deviate and breach traditional tribal boundaries, thus victimized by socially ascribing disabling social identity of non-legitimate origin, in addition to their poorly valued social identity as tribals. As a result, non-legitimate children experience conflicts in social relationships, poor social integration, reduced support, poor peer acceptance, and exclusion that characterized everyday communal and school life. To conclude, these children internalized negative social (also non-legitimate) identities, psychosocial disabilities, and exclusion at neighborhood and schools.

Highlights

Premarital and extramarital sexual relationships, resultant pregnancies, and childbearing are universally ostracized through familial and social regulations, male monitoring of women’s sexuality and insertion of social pressure on women’s social interactions, and physical mobility in public spaces across cultures (Handy, Kassam, & Contact, 2004; Jose, Varghese, Renjith, & George, 2012; Kabeer & Mahmud, 2004) for social system maintenance (Jose, Varghese, & Sabu, 2011)
As Giorgi (2009) and Moustakas (1994) direct, we used a phenomenological study in which we explored tribal children’s lived experiences surrounding their birth in tribal community and of an outside of the wedlock relationships and related psychosocial disability and exclusion as these children experienced
As Morse (1994) guides, we developed the following pivotal questions: Do children of tribal unwed mothers internalize non-legitimate origin? If so, does it influence children’s identity construction, psychosocial disability, and social exclusion? To address this, we raised four sub-questions: (a) How children of unwed mothers perceive self-image and socially construct their self-identity, (ii) How children of unwed mothers internalize non-legitimate origin? (iii) What are psychosocial disabilities experienced in terms of social integration, social support, peer acceptance, and quality of social relations; and what is nature of social exclusion experienced by the children of unwed mothers

Summary

Introduction

Premarital and extramarital sexual relationships, resultant pregnancies, and childbearing are universally ostracized through familial and social regulations, male monitoring of women’s sexuality and insertion of social pressure on women’s social interactions, and physical mobility in public spaces across cultures (Handy, Kassam, & Contact, 2004; Jose, Varghese, Renjith, & George, 2012; Kabeer & Mahmud, 2004) for social system maintenance (Jose, Varghese, & Sabu, 2011). Severity may vary from culture to culture and society to society (Jose, Varghese, & Sultana, 2013) such individuals and groups are pushed out of the social norms and punishments are meted out in the forms of stigmatization, discrimination, and social distancing (Major & O’Brien, 2005). Stigmatization of such expelled individuals or groups is based on social morals and value systems that discredit and reduce targets into tainted subhumans (Goffman, 1963); which help in maintaining social practices and institutions as traditionally valued (Jose et al, 2012). It is imperative to examine the how do these children develop and form their social identity in the background of their illegitimacy and how this social identity shapes psychosocial disability and exclusion of these children in their everyday

Methods

Discussion

Conclusion