Health Beliefs and Practices Among Subaltern Women: An Ethnographic Account From Rural Telangana, India

Abstract

Apart from biological factors, social determinants play a major role in shaping health beliefs and paving the way for various behaviours. Subaltern women, being the lowest strata of the caste hierarchy, have additional barriers to accessing modern healthcare and may be more likely to experience poor health outcomes due to a combination of social, economic and cultural factors. Structural violence represents a dynamic process that impedes an individual’s social, economic and biological potential, affecting both socially excluded, economically disadvantaged and historically marginalized subaltern communities. Social justice significantly influences individuals’ life prospects and health outcomes, with health disparities stemming from social disadvantage and inequality. Addressing disparities in health, the Health Gap underscores the importance of acknowledging the role of social determinants of health. Health equity entails enhancing the well-being of marginalized social groups and tackling the broader social determinants of health. The current qualitative study was conducted in three villages in the Nalgonda district of Telangana, India. In addition to focus group discussions and one-on-one interviews, the ethnography method was employed to capture subaltern women’s health beliefs and practices regarding food habits, puberty, menstruation, sexuality and sexual life, childbearing and childbirth, breastfeeding and the role of primary healthcare centres in promoting healthcare. Subaltern women experience double discrimination as members of a lower caste and a weaker gender, and access to healthcare, like other fundamental human rights, is a recurring issue. Many of them are impoverished and unable to afford contemporary medical care, forcing them to rely on the more cost-effective traditional model of healthcare. Despite being forbidden from accomplishing many things owing to a range of societal and age-old customary sanctions, modernization and state-owned institutional mechanisms are bringing about a good shift towards better health.