Anthropological demography

The focus of this paper is to highlight how the convergence of two methodological strategies of qualitative research – working in 'teams’ and with 'insiders' –can come together to facilitate access, efficiency and insights into research questions of interest to demographers. Much of the extant literature utilizing a team-based approach tends to focus on teams of two or more professors acting as co-principal investigators. Similarly, it is often “lone” ethnographers, usually from a Northern institution, who use local research assistants with “insider” status to serve as interpreter/key informant. Here we draw on projects embedded in a demographic surveillance site in rural South Africa that integrate both approaches. These projects make use of teams of local, “insider” research assistants, who, although not academically trained in qualitative and ethnographic methods, assume roles beyond translating for the investigators and administering focus groups or in-depth interviews. The three projects conducted in the MRC/Wits Rural Public Health and Health Transitions Research Unit (Agincourt) site in Mpumalanga, South Africa, vary in their use of “teams” and “insiders”, but each brings to light the benefits and limitations of employing the integrated approach.

Usage of internet is largely limited to passive reception of available content until the advent of large social networking websites, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc. Through these websites online users create contents and build relationships with each other, amplifying users' dependence on and power of online network. This paper uses Kozinets' model of internet user segmentation to categorize users into 4 groups; collector, onlookers, VIP users, and joiners. Two differentiating factors, i.e. contributions and social capital are introduced. Unlike most studies on online networking behaviors, this study uses real behavioral data (as opposed to surveyed, subjective data) of Hao Kan Pu, a Chinese-based social network website. It is found that idle members, those having low contributions and low social capital dominate the network, accounted for 98.47% of the samples. Active members, those having high contributions and connections, are accounted only 0.21%. High-contribution members with low connections (collectors), and low-contribution members with high connections, are accounted for 0.64% and 0.67%, respectively. This structural data of online network's behavior is crucial for online social network analysis, e-marketers, as well as community development.

We examine how people understand and conceptualize developmental idealism – a cultural schema that links ideas about societal and familial development. For centuries, scholars and policy makers have written that the world is dynamic, changing from traditional to modern, that modern families are causes of modern societies, that modern societies are causes of modern families, and that modern societies and families are better than traditional ones. These ideas have spread widely around the world, with the capacity for fostering change. The question motivating our research concerns the extent to which people link together the various aspects of developmental idealism as a package. Do individuals who endorse one aspect of developmental idealism endorse other aspects, or is there little relationship between how individuals evaluate the various aspects? We investigate these issues using 2008 data collected in Nepal. Our data indicate that Nepalis link some aspects of developmental idealism together but not others.

This paper focuses on my field experiences from Turkey Demographic and Health Surveys, Turkey Maternal Mortality Survey, and extensive use of qualitative research on family planning and induced abortion in Turkey since 1993. During the surveys, I had the opportunity to gather substantial amounts of information about women’s everyday experiences in relation to traditional practices, approaches to health and health care, and women’s attitudes and emotional contexts. The narratives of women included heartbreaking and tragic experiences due to traditional gender norms within the families. In this paper, I examine the effect of patriarchal/gender hierarchies on the experiences of the brides in relation to infant mortality data through a qualitative approach based on observations, field notes, and in depth interviews with women. The research questions the impact of the culturally determined gender and age hierarchies within these extended families on the liminal life of infants and their mothers in Anatolia. How do these relationships determine the life courses of the infants during their initial years? The concepts of ‘liminality’ and development of ‘personhood’ frame the theoretical grounds to further articulate bride/mother/infant visibility and invisibility within these families and the experiences of infant mortality.

Aim- To understand and explain the temporal process and dynamics of decision-making on intrapartum care for first births among the urban poor in India.
Methods- The study uses a qualitative longitudinal research design. Two stages of semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted in January-July 2012 with primiparous women, as well as their husbands, mothers-in-law and/or mothers (depending on the composition of their household around the time of the birth). The first interview was conducted in the third trimester of pregnancy and the second within the first 8 weeks postpartum. 16 households were sampled purposively from 12 slums in Indore, Madhya Pradesh. Data were coded and analysed thematically.
Results- Households identify and register at a facility as a priority, but leave financial and transport arrangements until the final stages. Where intentions for home delivery are influenced by strong norms and/or lack of experience with the health system in general, planning and preparation is limited. Intentions may change during pregnancy and outcomes do not always match intentions, regardless of preparedness, due to multiple influences at the individual, household and health system levels. There is a need to reconceptualise decision-making and birth preparedness as temporal processes with non-linear courses of action.  

This paper examines disparity in childhood malnutrition (underweight) across the ethnic groups in India and its region using three rounds of the National Family Health Survey conducted during 1992-2006. Descriptive statistics and pooled logistic regression analysis were applied to measure the disparity in childhood malnutrition across the ethnic groups. The prevalence of underweight differs considerably between the Scheduled castes/Scheduled tribes (SC/ST) and other caste; underweight among the SC/ST in India being substantially higher than other caste. The prevalence has declined among the other caste while it has stagnated among SC/ST over the study period. Pooled logistic regression results suggest that the disparity in underweight has increased across the ethnic groups in India over the last two decades. The findings call for dedicated policies, in line with those already existing to improve the socio-economic status of the SC/ST in India, to tackle the rampant childhood malnutrition among the SC/ST in India.

The tribal population is an integral part of India’s social fabric and has the second largest concentration after that of the African continent. Tribal’s in India present a significant degree of cultural and ethnic diversity. It is ironical that the poorest people of India are living in the areas of richest natural resources.
The Zeliangrong is one of the indigenous tribes of Manipur. The name Zeliangrong was formed by the combination of the cognate tribes, such as Zemei, Liangmei and Rongmei. It has been formed by stitching the first three syllables together out of the three sub tribes’ names.
The article will portray the entire perspective of Zeliangrong, the Naga tribe of Manipur, India. It will indicate their cultural customs, tradition, living system, occupation, marriage system, and their physical features etc. They have a good number of population ranking third among the tribal group of Manipur. It has lots of variation and difference from hills to valley. The present study was conducted in different villages from where more accurate information was expected. The data was collected from aged people

Many Africans now recognize indigenous knowledge as “the single largest knowledge resource not yet mobilized in the development enterprise”. The global economic and environmental crises, and widening inequalities between and within countries have exposed flaws in the Western, model of development imposed from the top, and the need for an alternative model which emphasizes the cultural dimension of development. The challenge for Africa is how to engage and cope with globalization and other external influences in a way that is compatible with local cultures, values and priorities. The paper considers how indigenous knowledge and practice can be used to achieve sustainable development in governance, health care, poverty alleviation, environmental protection, and so on. Indigenous knowledge offers a model for rethinking and redirecting the development process, and a way to involve, enable and empower local actors to take part in their own development. Researchers and donor agencies in Africa should try to learn from and tap into indigenous knowledge for locally appropriate ways to achieve endogenous development. The paper sees the indigenous knowledge movement as an appropriate local response to globalization and Western knowledge dominance, and a way to promote cultural identity and inter-cultural dialogue for African development

This paper takes a retrospective look at the substantive, theoretical and methodological innovations and contributions of the Malawi/South Africa Journals Project, an archive of over 1200 observational journals from 1999 to the present. The journals provide intensive details of day-to-day rural life in a range of settings, focusing the interactions, interpretations, and challenges that populate informal social networks. The journals provide a longitudinal account of communities, households and individuals coping with the phases of the AIDS epidemic, from the era of highest prevalence, through the expansion of prevention campaigns, to the coming of HIV testing, and, most recently, the rollout of treatment. Using the journals, scholars have been able to identify how ordinary Malawians have negotiated matters of love, risk and death in the face of their knowledge of AIDS, and how local dynamics have shaped the uptake and use of innovations from "outside", ranging from the clinical apparatuses of biomedicine to the "talking technologies" of self-help and support groups. We identify the unique contributions of this extraordinary archive, and consider both its limitations and future directions.

The aim of this paper is to find out relation between culture and population movements with emphasize on migration trends in Iran and its neighbours.These are Azerbaijan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Armenia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Russian Federation, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Iraq, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and Yemen Countries. The main question of this paper is that; do countries with different historical and cultural experiences (e.g., Iran,Pakistan and Turkey), and economic growth (e.g., Afghanistan vs. Pakistan) manifest similar patterns of migration change? More specifically, the study attempts to examine Hammel Theory on relation between demographic changes and cultural traits in Iran and its neighbours. Research method is documentary analysis. It is tried to monitor the national and international invaluable sources. Data used in this research are mostly taken from the United Nations Population Division (2011 Revision) and the World Bank (WDI 2011) for the period 1990-2010 and Human Development Report (HDR) for 2011. This study is confirmed Hammel’s theory for those countries which have same human development level.