Parenting among Nepalese families in Lisbon and its effect on child integration

The purpose of this study was to understand which parenting style presented by Baumrind (1967) of authoritative, authoritarian or permissive the Nepalese immigrants in Portugal are associated with, what values they transmit to their children and how does it affect child integration in schools. The aim was to know if migrating to a country with difference in culture and values brings changes in the way parenting is provided for Nepalese parents and the affect it has on children. This was a qualitative study among 10 participants with 5 mothers and 5 fathers who brought their children to Portugal. The parent's perception of the way they provide parenting, the transmission of values and their children's response to these provided the primary data for this study. The data was collected through in-depth individual interviews which were conducted in Nepali language with the support of semi structured questionnaires. The research found that the Nepalese parenting style could not be incorporated into a single parenting style as suggested by Baumrind as it has components of both the authoritative and authoritarian parenting styles. I also found that parenting for Nepalese immigrants in Portugal was affected by native culture, children's reactions, Portuguese laws and norms and support systems. The mothers and fathers performed different parenting roles as mothers were mostly associated with care, support and comfort whereas fathers were mostly associated with monitoring and implementation of rules

The impact of the Lamosangu-Jri road on the life experience and reproductive behaviour of women of the Tamang community of Jetthul, Nepal.

This thesis examines the linkage between road construction, female development and fertility among women of two rural Tamang communities in Jetthul, Nepal. Completion of the all- weather road between Jetthul and Lamosangu in 1980 created a motorised link with Kathmandu. Taking an integrated approach, aspects of development and female life associated with fertility decline are examined within the limitations of a post hoc study Using a combination of ethnographic and quantitative survey techniques, links are traced between the advent of the road and changes in female employment, urban and media exposure, education, autonomy in marriage and reproductive behaviour. Investigation reveals women have not become frequent road users. In maintaining subsistence activities and childcare, they remain closely bound to family-based, agricultural production within the village sphere. Although female contact with urban centres has increased since the advent of the road, it remains low, relative to that of men, the majority of whom seek waged employment outside Jetthul. Although school attendance has commenced among girls since the inception of road construction, rates of completion of primary school and literacy are very poor. Contact with mass media is low in the village setting, but since the opening of the road, young women have gained access to cinema and video in Kathmandu. Although the incidence of forceful capture marriage has declined smce 1980, there is no detectable increase in female autonomy in the nuptial process. While female age at marriage has increased, since road provision, there has been a significant decrease in the time lapse between marriage and first birth. This suggests the road has stimulated social change relatmg to intimate behaviour. Since completion of the road, little attention has been forthcoming from other development projects. Although the communities have received modest government agricultural and health assistance and have been visited by a mobile sterilisation camp, in-depth investigation at the micro-level has identified the inappropriate approach and subsequent failure of these limited programmes in Jetthul. This thesis demonstrates that in the absence of female-centred project support, girls and women of poor rural communities are not necessarily advantaged during the early stages of development initiatives such as road building. Furthermore, in addressing high fertility among the majority rural population, a more integrated approach is required at the community level, to more fully incorporate women and girls into the national development process and support fertility decline

Bonded Labour in Nepal: Life and Work of Children in Communities

This dissertation focuses on the lives of Nepali children working under haliya and kamaiya systems. The former refers to people from various castes and ethnicities, including Musahar, predominately found in the far-western hill region of Nepal, who work as 'temporary' agricultural labourers for kisan (small landowners) to meet their daily needs, and also, often, to pay their debts. The latter exclusively implies ethnic Tharu families from the western Tarai districts, who have been tied to their kisan for generations. The United Nations Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery calls those people bonded labourers. Although detailed research is almost non-existent, especially concerning haliya practices, advocacy groups and the International Labour Organisation argue that bonded labour has continued even after the government banned it in 2000. Children in particular have increasingly taken on the activities previously carried out by their parents. This study was carried out in the pseudonymous Bayibab and Nayajib settlements of Morang and Bardiya districts, respectively, exploring Musahar/Tharu children's bondedness at work, including their motives and rationale for entering into bonded labour, the ways in which they understand it and its significance in the context of their lives. I conducted a series of semi-structured interviews and group discussions with 58 haliya/kamaiya children (ages ranging from 8 to 16 years), applying 'child-friendly' research techniques in order to uncover their everyday life-worlds from their own perspectives. My interviews with, and observations of, working children, parents, and kisan also provided a rich source of ethnographic data concerning bonded child labour. This research shows the complexity in Musahar/Tharu children's constructions of haliya/kamaiya systems. It includes their assessment of their own health and well-being and their current and future prospects while being engaged in bonded child labour

How has corporal punishment in Nepalese schools impacted upon learners' lives?

This study explores how the corporal punishment experienced by learners in Nepalese schools can impact upon multiple aspects of their lives. I examine how these short and long-term effects can extend into adulthood using an auto/biographical methodology; from a perspective influenced by my own encounters as a corporal punishment survivor from Nepal. Corporal punishment continues to be used in Nepalese schools, with the support of many teachers, parents and school management committees, despite several government policy initiatives and court rulings against it. In contrast to worldwide developments (notably in Scandinavia and America), research into corporal punishment in Nepal tends to be rare, quantitative and focused upon the prevalence and short-term effects as described by group participants and newspaper articles. This study addresses the urgent need to increase public awareness, using personal accounts describing the long-term outcomes of corporal punishment, with a depth of detail facilitated by an auto/biographical research methodology. Participants in the study expressed feelings of relief and increased self-understanding, although for myself at least, these were accompanied by feelings of grief and confusion. The lives of five corporal punishment survivors are explored through a series of interviews carried out in the Devchuli municipality of Nawalparasi, Nepal, between November 2015 and January 2016. The first is my own story, the second is a pilot interview and the other three are discussed under the themes of immediate compliance, severing dichotomies, disempowered bodies and the spiritual threat of spatio-temporal appropriation. The participants, whose identities are protected, look back, as adults, upon their experiences of corporal punishment at school and consider possible links between these and their current social, political, economic and spiritual challenges. Simultaneously, the study questions whether ‘effects’ can ever be conceptually or temporally contained within ‘multi-faceted’ and ‘becoming’ identities, using examples from the participants’ self-appraisals. I examine literature from the global debate on the effects of corporal punishment upon children, including the contrasting methodologies of Murray Straus, Alice Miller and Elizabeth Gershoff. The impact of corporal punishment upon notions of personhood is explored using Theodor Adorno’s interpretation of reification and comparable notions of objectification challenged by Andrea Dworkin, Martha Nussbaum and Paolo Freire. Corporal punishment is discussed in relation to power, conflict and the Holocaust, using Adorno and Bauman’s descriptions of authoritarian behaviours and immediate compliance, and Nietzsche and Foucault’s notions of punishment as a spectacle. Conditions for the possibility of corporal punishment are located to traditions deifying teachers, judgement-based belief systems and neo-liberal ideologies of competition and performativity. These are contrasted with alternative, non-punitive pedagogical and theological resources. Participants explore the ways in which healing and holistic self-development can be blocked by everyday vocabularies of violence and conditionality, triggering destructive individual and collective over-determined reactions. My study ‘concludes’ with reflections upon how corporal punishment has affected my participants’ lives: with their social roles hampered by defensive masks and evasive dances; their political lives blocked by fears of punishment; their economic lives stilted by caution and low self-esteem and their spiritual lives distorted by disenchantment and disappointment. Methodology and theory converge as my study rejects inherently disciplinarian, Enlightenment-led demands fo**r rational or scientific ‘proof’ of psychological effects, by presenting auto/biography itself, especially ‘child-standpoint’ narratives, as valid revolutionary praxis, effervescent with resistance to punitive ideologies and practices and dedicated to the liberation of our present from a painful past