Indian Nations Research Articles

The risk to cultural identity – Narrative of Mrs Takurine Mahesh Singh (1872–1959)

The article purports to examine the risk to cultural identity amongst an Indian community in South Africa using a single case study methodology. A case study approach was followed, using the qualitative research methodology, whereby not only the how (observation), but also adding focus on the thoughts, feelings, perceptions, experiences and motivations that people have underlie their behaviour. The year 1960 marked the 100th anniversary of the arrival of the Indians to the Colony of Natal, hence the study considers the period 1895 to 1960. Identifying with a particular culture allows members of that community to experience feelings of belonging and security. Moving across continents, Indian indentured sugar plantation labourers came to the Colony of Natal from 1860 until 1911 bringing with them their cultural identity. The risk to cultural identity is a significant contributor to an individual’s well-being. Cultural identity may be viewed as a sense of belonging based on one’s ancestry, rituals, religion, traditions, values and even language. When they were transported during the concurrent time of colonisation and indenture, they became displaced and thus an emotional threat to their well-being, belonging and security was created and simultaneously experienced. This threat compromised their cultural identity. This risk to cultural identity is investigated in the narrative of an Indian female national matriarch, Mrs Takurine Mahesh Singh who arrived in the Colony in 1895 and passed away in 1959. A risk to cultural identity existed, but the Indian community in South Africa did not experience deculturalisation. They were able to practise their ancestral culture without losing their identity. This is one of the findings and it concludes the abstract.Contribution: The study of identity, identity diffusion, identity loss is a very important aspect to study, especially for displaced communities who suffer not only alienation from their mother country, but also losing contact and cultures as a result of displacement. This article provides insight on the risk to cultural identity in Natal between 1895 and 1960. In terms of the findings, cultural identity is an important contributor to well-being. Identifying with a particular culture gave the matriarch a feeling of belonging and security. It also provides access to social and other networks which provide support and shared strength, values and aspirations. Although a product of oral history, for this research, the article could not be supported by other historical materials in an attempt at balancing the views as scholars have not explored the widowed Indian nationals who have remained in the Colony after indenture. This article should not be viewed simplistically as a retelling of Mrs Singh’s life story, but rather a narrative based on reflective memories that pieced together her departure from India under the political system of indenture, living and surviving as a widow under harsh laws and having multiple identities. The narrative oral history approach combined with a qualitative research methodology does not focus on analysis and interpretation but rather brings to the fore, the opportunity for further exploratory studies where the question ‘why’ will be answered.

Willingness to Share Wearable Device Data for Research Among Mechanical Turk Workers: Web-Based Survey Study.

BackgroundWearable devices that are used for observational research and clinical trials hold promise for collecting data from study participants in a convenient, scalable way that is more likely to reach a broad and diverse population than traditional research approaches. Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) is a potential resource that researchers can use to recruit individuals into studies that use data from wearable devices.ObjectiveThis study aimed to explore the characteristics of wearable device users on MTurk that are associated with a willingness to share wearable device data for research. We also aimed to determine whether compensation was a factor that influenced the willingness to share such data.MethodsThis was a secondary analysis of a cross-sectional survey study of MTurk workers who use wearable devices for health monitoring. A 19-question web-based survey was administered from March 1 to April 5, 2018, to participants aged ≥18 years by using the MTurk platform. In order to identify characteristics that were associated with a willingness to share wearable device data, we performed logistic regression and decision tree analyses.Results A total of 935 MTurk workers who use wearable devices completed the survey. The majority of respondents indicated a willingness to share their wearable device data (615/935, 65.8%), and the majority of these respondents were willing to share their data if they received compensation (518/615, 84.2%). The findings from our logistic regression analyses indicated that Indian nationality (odds ratio [OR] 2.74, 95% CI 1.48-4.01, P=.007), higher annual income (OR 2.46, 95% CI 1.26-3.67, P=.02), over 6 months of using a wearable device (OR 1.75, 95% CI 1.21-2.29, P=.006), and the use of heartbeat and pulse tracking monitoring devices (OR 1.60, 95% CI 0.14-2.07, P=.01) are significant parameters that influence the willingness to share data. The only factor associated with a willingness to share data if compensation is provided was Indian nationality (OR 0.47, 95% CI 0.24-0.9, P=.02). The findings from our decision tree analyses indicated that the three leading parameters associated with a willingness to share data were the duration of wearable device use, nationality, and income.ConclusionsMost wearable device users indicated a willingness to share their data for research use (with or without compensation; 615/935, 65.8%). The probability of having a willingness to share these data was higher among individuals who had used a wearable for more than 6 months, were of Indian nationality, or were of American (United States of America) nationality and had an annual income of more than US $20,000. Individuals of Indian nationality who were willing to share their data expected compensation significantly less often than individuals of American nationality (P=.02).

Survival Analysis of Symptomatic COVID-19 in Phuentsholing Municipality, Bhutan.

COVID-19 is a disease that is caused by a highly transmissible and pathogenic novel coronavirus: severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). All of the COVID-19 positive cases in Bhutanese travellers returning via the Phuentsholing point of entry, the local population, and Indian nationals were isolated in the Phuentsholing COVID-19 isolation ward, Bhutan. This study aimed to identify the risk factors for developing symptoms among COVID-19 positive patients in this ward. A retrospective cohort study was conducted using the data regarding COVID-19 positive cases in the Phuentsholing COVID-19 isolation ward from 28 May 2020 to 31 May 2021. The Cox proportional hazards regression model was used to identify the risk factors of developing COVID-19 symptoms. There were 521 patients in the study; 368 (70.6%) were males and 153 (29.4%) were females. The mean age was 32 years (with a range of 1–78 years), and 290 (56.0%) reported at least one symptom. The median length of isolation was eight days (with a range of 3–48 days). The common symptoms were: cough (162, 31.0%), fever (135, 26.0%), and headache (101, 19.0%). In the multivariable Cox regression, vaccinated patients were 77.0% (p = 0.047) less likely to develop symptoms compared to those who were not vaccinated. The front line workers and the mini-dry port (MDP) workers were 15 (p = 0.031) and 41 (p < 0.001) times more likely to be symptomatic compared to returning travellers. The young and economically active population group was most commonly affected by COVID-19. The presence of risk factors, such as being front line workers, MDP workers, or not being vaccinated against COVID-19, meant that patients had a higher probability of developing symptoms of COVID-19.

Advancing Indian Nations’ Motor Vehicle Crash Reporting

The American Indian population is at high risk for motor vehicle (MV) crash injury. Although this is preventable, the majority of these indigenous populations lack fundamental data needed to understand these events and implement effective countermeasures. This cross-case study sets a framework by exploring Indian nations’ crash reporting systems (CRS) and the potential to fill this information void. An inventory process conducted with four tribes produced a pragmatic approach that tribes can refine to fulfill local objectives for accountability, sovereignty, and system integrity. Enormous benefits can be derived from a reliable CRS. The study shows that electronically documenting MV crash event data is plausible with commitment from tribes and support from other stakeholders.

Four Principles for Cultivating Alternate Cultural Paradigms in Psychology: Summary Reflections on Innovative Contributions

The contributors to this special issue have demonstrated the potency and promise of cultivating Alternate Cultural Paradigms (ACPs) in psychology that reflect and express the lived realities of non-White communities in America. Based on my past research engagement with several distinct American Indian and First Nations communities, I offer for consideration four principles for psychologists who seek to further cultivate ACPs: (a) attend independently to culture and power, (b) anchor conceptual abstractions in empirical examples, (c) complicate stock oppositions and essentialisms, and (d) integrate emancipation with application. Adoption of these four principles should assist with the development of robust ACPs that accurately reflect the lived experiences of non-White communities. The promotion of these in psychology represents the exciting possibility for a more just and equitable future in which the injuries of White racism are remedied and all Americans are granted equal opportunities to live and thrive in self-determined fashion.

Cultures of Fermentation

Cultures of Fermentation

Satellites of Belonging

Abstract The proliferation of Malayalam satellite television in the Gulf indicates the primacy that Indian nationals from Kerala have attained as a significant televisual demographic. In this paper I locate Malayali diasporic media formations from the late 1990s onward and examine how they contribute to the construction of the ‘Gulf-Malayali’ as a prominent vector for the satellite television industry based in the south Indian state of Kerala. The entertainment industry not only produces content for this demographic, but also works with expatriate Malayali communities on content that empowers them as creators of their own stories. In this paper I examine how stratified audience categories are targeted by satellite television programming. In interrogating the matrices through which regionality, entrepreneurship, ethics and success as migrants are woven into such programming, I track how different agents use varying strategies to showcase heterogenous migrant experiences mediated by class, caste and fluctuations of capital.

Locating theTawa’ifCourtesan-Dancer: Cinematic Constructions of Religion and Nation

The development of the Hindi/Urdu cinema is intimately connected to the history of artistic performance in India in two important ways. Not only did hereditary music and dance practitioners play key roles in building this cinema, representations of these performers and their practices have been, and continue to be, the subject of Indian film narratives, genres, and tropes. I begin with this history in order to explore the Muslim religio-cultural and artistic inheritance that informs Hindi/Urdu cinema, as well as examine how this heritage has been incorporated into the cinematic narratives that help construct distinct gendered, religious, and national identities. My specific focus is on the figure of the tawa’if dancer, often equated with North Indian culture and nautch dance performance. Analyzing the ways in which traces of the tawa’if appear in two recent films, Dedh Ishqiya and Begum Jaan, I show how this figure is placed in a larger representational regime that sustains nationalist formations of contemporary Indian identity. As I demonstrate, even in the most blatant attempts to define the Indian nation as “Hindu,” the “Muslimness” of the tawa’if—and by extension the cinema she informed in ways both real and representational—is far from relinquished.

Majoritarianism and digital rights: understanding Kashmir and the ‘Othering of Other’ in the context of India

We live in a world that is increasingly surrounded by visuals. From postcards, photographs, bill boards, magazines to the television screen and now the coming of the internet, the reality comes in mediated forms through multiple and contesting forms of visual culture. The screens proliferate and get embedded in the lives of individuals. This has resulted in increased accessibility and use of smart phones with reduced data costs leading to forging solidarities across nations and creation of shared culture of visuals and writings. It is noted that on the flipside, circulation of misinformation and disinformation takes place to embolden the ethnic majoritarian sentiments that have ideological affiliation with the present ruling party in India. The abrogation of article 370 and article 35A by the present government that gave special status of autonomy to the state of Jammu and Kashmir was arguably unconstitutional but celebrated as a victory of nationalism. In the aftermath of the abrogation, Kashmir witnessed internet ban for more than hundred days and therefore, communication was blocked by the government in the name of safeguarding sovereignty of the Indian nation state and maintenance of public order. Hence, the issue from being technical is political when some people are disconnected (outlawed) from cyber space. The article attends at understanding the context in which some people has been silenced with the internet ban and protest symbols that are historically contextualised but also has the potential to create something new with assemblage of protesting people, visibility of digital technologies and contention in the present regime.

Reappraising B. R. Ambedkar’s Thoughts of Inclusive Indian Nation

Dr B. R. Ambedkar, one of the makers of the Indian Constitution, is known best as the emancipator of the untouchables. Ambedkar’s effort to make India as a nation through ‘breaking the internal differences’ is much debated and not widely recognized as he has still been confined only to his identity as a ‘liberating leader of the Dalits’. Ambedkar’s ideas—caste annihilation, securing rights to the depressed class, representation of the oppressed in political affairs, egalitarian economic arrangement, women’s rights and thoughts on democracy—all have the potential to be linked with his ideas of a nation, which is inclusive in nature.

The “Four Nations of Indians Upon the Susquehanna”: Mid-Atlantic Murder, Diplomacy, and Political Identity, 1717–1723

Abstract In the wake of the first murder of an Indian by two Pennsylvania colonists in 1722, the Delaware (Lenape), Shawnee, Conoy (Piscataway), and Conestoga (Susquehannock/Mingo) Indians engineered a confederated diplomatic and political identity to defend their homeland. They styled themselves the “Four Nations of Indians upon the Susquehanna” to counteract the “Covenant Chain” devised by the Iroquois and colonial governments. Anthropologists have identified “ethno-genesis” wherein peoples from multiple Indian cultures wracked by epidemics intertwined to form wholly new cultures and nations. This, however, is a story of “politico-genesis.” These four nations retained their individual languages and governing structures while living in multinational or adjacent towns and joined together to present a single diplomatic voice to the English government and the Iroquois League who sought to control them. This was an early and significant attempt at political and diplomatic confederation that Indian peoples would employ in centuries to follow.

Abolition, Settler Colonialism, and the Persistent Threat of Indian Child Welfare

Family separation is a defining feature of the U.S. government’s policy to forcibly assimilate and dismantle American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) tribal nations. The historical record catalogues the violence of this separation in several ways, including the mass displacement of Native children into boarding schools throughout the 19th century and the widespread adoption of Native children into non-Native homes in the 20th century. This legacy eventually prompted the passage of landmark legislation known as the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 (ICWA). ICWA introduced federal protections against the unnecessary removal of Native children and affirmed the role of the tribe as an important partner in child welfare proceedings. To what extent has the federal government honored the commitments of ICWA and reversed the trajectory of Native family separation since 1978? What can be done to reduce the threat of the current child welfare system on the well-being of Native families?&#x0D; In this Article, we use administrative and historical data to statistically evaluate the magnitude of change in AIAN family separation since the passage of ICWA and locate the institutional pathways that funnel AIAN families into the child welfare system. We find that, despite long-standing treaty responsibilities to support the health and well-being of tribal nations, AIAN children remain at incredibly high risk of family separation. In particular, we find that the frequency of AIAN children’s placement into foster care has remained relatively stable since the passage of ICWA and that the post-investigation removal decision by child welfare agencies is a key mechanism of inequality in family separation. We situate these findings within theories about settler colonialism and Indigenous dispossession to illustrate that the continuous removal of Native children from their homes is not an anomaly. Instead, we argue that the very intent of a white supremacist settler-state is to dismantle Native communities. Based upon these findings, we argue that the child welfare system in its entirety must be abolished in order to stop the routine surveillance and separation of Native and nonWhite children from their families by the state. We suggest that ICWA has provided, and will continue to provide, a necessary intervention to protect Native families so long as this intrusive system remains. We conclude by envisioning an abolitionist approach that immediately redirects social and financial resources into the hands of Native families and works cooperatively with tribal nations to promote Indigenous communities of care.

Social Representation of ‘Vocal Hygiene’ in India and Bhutan: A Cross-Sectional Survey

The study aimed to explore the professional and recreational and/or personal voice use patterns and social representation of 'vocal hygiene' in two culturally and geographically diverse societies: India and Bhutan. A total of 339 volunteers of Indian and Bhutanese nationality participated through snowball sampling. The responses were elicited using multiple-choice questions and a free association task. The data from the multiple-choice questions were analyzed using descriptive statistical methods. The free association task's responses underwent content and co-occurrence analysis to identify the most frequently occurring response categories. The professional voice use pattern differed between the two populations but not the recreational and/or personal voice use pattern. The results also revealed diverse social representations of 'vocal hygiene' in India and Bhutan. The present study sheds light on the voice use patterns and how the concept of vocal hygiene is represented in the two countries. These findings may have implications for developing and executing society specific awareness programs about vocal hygiene and its importance.

Documents on the history of the Indian National Congress from the archive of viceroy of India Minto

The subject of this research is the documents from the archive of the viceroy of India Minto, which contain the records about the Indian National Congress. The author examines the history of studying the archive of Minto in foreign scientific literature. Special attention is given to correspondence of Minto with the Secretary of State for India Lord John Morley and their deputies that covers the period from the first Partition of Bengal (1905), split in the Indian National Congress (1907), and draft of the Morley-Minto reform, which involved the members of the Indian National Congress. The article also discusses the activity of the Indian Parliamentary Committee in the British House of Commons, and the response of the colonial authorities to hire pro-Indian parliamentarians in London. The conclusion is made that the documents on the history of the Indian National Congress from Minto&amp;rsquo;s archive reveal the peculiarities of interaction between the British colonial administration and the national elites, which was aimed at preserving the loyalty of the most moderate representatives of the Indian National Congress, as well as at weakening the national liberation movement that manifested in countering by the colonial administration the significant extension of rights of the Indian nationals and implementation of &amp;ldquo;separate electorates: within the framework of the Morley-Minto reform. &amp;nbsp;The documents from Minto&amp;rsquo;s archive reflect the perspective of the colonial administration on the path of further development of India within the empire by preserving British power.

Stri – Dharma: The Mouth Organ of Women Liberation Movement in Colonial Tamilnadu, 1916 – 1936

Stri Dharma, a widely known paper was started in India in 1915 by British feminist, Margaret Cousins, an Irish suffragist. Cousins would be active in the Indian women's movement, and Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddy, who would later go on to serve as the editor of the magazine and the first woman legislator in British India. In 1918, feminists living in Madras, India established Stri Dharma in connection with the WIA. This anti-colonial, pro-nationalist journal asked women to take up the cause of female reform and national freedom. Stri Dharma as a political advocacy publication that attempted to create and sustain a community of women activists, simultaneously involved in the international and indigenous feminist and Indian nationalist movements. As the quarterly journal of the WIA, it intended, according to the editor to act as the voice, the ear and the eye of their members. Editors made a special effort to reach Stri Dharma's indigenous language audience. During the 1930's Stri Dharma increasingly addressed nationalist themes. Feminist claims began to fuse with Gandhi's growing nationalist movement linking together freedom for women with the progress of the Indian Nation. In its editorial columns Stri Dharma focused on issues of women and supported women's welfare.

Dimensions of GST on Small and Moderate Business Units: A Systematic Review

Implications of indirect tax namely GST’s implications on small and medium businesses are an emerging area of research in India. Relevant literature of Indian and other nations up to 2020 has been studied and it covers published and also grey literature materials. Adequate caution and consideration have been applied in choosing the appropriate literature. Understandings from the significantly sourced literature have been thematically analysed and presented. The outcome of this work makes clear the dimensions of GST in relation to opportunities for small and moderate business houses, experiences of other countries and the current challenges for small and moderate businesses in the Indian context. One of the significant findings is that implications of GST on MSMEs across various industries would be diverse and also vary from politically sensitive industries of each state. This review is a step towards further research and helps the MSME owners and policymakers in making informed decisions.

COVID-19 response by the Hopi Tribe: impact of systems improvement during the first wave on the second wave of the pandemic

The Hopi Tribe is a sovereign nation home to ~7500 Hopi persons living primarily in 12 remote villages. The Hopi Tribe, like many other American Indian nations, has been disproportionately...

Ownership and Trust in Banks: Evidence from the First Bank in an American Indian Nation

In collaboration with an American Indian nation, we conducted a survey that is the first of its kind in Indian Country. The survey explored tribal members' financial experiences in the months before the first bank opened on their reservation. In this article, we connect respondents' reported ex ante trust in banks to their support for the new bank. Descriptively, respondents are highly supportive of the new bank whatever their ex ante trust in banks, but the relationship is nonlinear. Native ownership seems to be particularly silent to those in the middle or low end of the trust distribution.

On the Problem of Nation(alism): Persistence and Absence in the Indian Post-Colony

The search for an origin of the nation is destined to remain structured by an aporia that signals the productive irresolution of signification. In a sense, presence is always to arrive in the future, to be made anew. In post-colonial India the Muslim other embodies the ghostly trace of an undecidable figure that characterizes the aporia at the heart of the claim of Hindutva nationalism to a universal purchase on Mother India. The Muslim other then, as the ghost of the undecidable, becomes a metaphor for the fundamental fracture or split in the Hindutva nationalist imaginary, a specter which cannot be resolved and which indeed founds the very (im)possibility of the Hindutva Indian nation itself.

Incorporating Indigenous Nations into International Political Economy

This comment elaborates on and extends the roundtable’s discussion by turning to the context of Indigenous peoples. Even setting aside normative motivations, expanded study of Indigenous peoples provides clear opportunities for theory development in international political economy and international relations more broadly. For example, the legal status of American Indian Nations’ 326 unique political jurisdictions can inform the political economy of marginalized identity groups in a non-Westphalian but nonetheless international context.