THE LIVED EXPERIENCE OF WOMEN AFFECTED WITH MATTED HAIR IN SOUTHWESTERN INDIA Govind Ganpati Dhaske Submitted to the faculty of the University Graduate School in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in the School of Social Work, Indiana University November 2014 Accepted by the Graduate Faculty, Indiana University, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. ____________________________ Margaret E. Adamek, Ph.D., Chair ____________________________ Doctoral Committee Carmen Luca Sugawara, Ph.D. ___________________________ José R. Rosario, Ph.D. July 30, 2014 ___________________________ Robert F. Vernon, Ph.D. ii © 2014 Govind Ganpati Dhaske iii DEDICATION I dedicate this scholarly work to my father, Late Shri Ganpati Ramchandra Dhaske (Aba) aka Dhaske Painter of Kadegaon, without whose value-based support to my intellectual freedom, I could not have found my Being. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS While I proudly proclaim my dissertation as my individual scholarship, a result of my search for the phenomenon of matting of hair, I must admit this achievement would not have been possible without the much-needed support, guidance, critique, and encouragement from my social environment and people around me. I am sincerely grateful to Dr. Margaret Adamek, the chair of my dissertation committee, for extensive guidance and instilling the research ability and scholarly writing skills. The training and continued support, beginning from the coursework until the culmination of this research, provided by Dr. Adamek, obliges me to call her my “academic mother” and I am proud of this heritage. I wish to thank Dr. Bob Vernon and Dr. Carmen Luca-Sugawara for their appropriate advice and support during the coursework and as esteemed members of my dissertation committee. I am particularly grateful to Dr. José R. Rosario for guiding me to the works of Bourdieu, later Heidegger, and application of theories. Without Dr. Rosario’s critical reviews of my scholarly work, further sustained by his excellent suggestions on developing my activist-scholarship, I would not have gained confidence in my research competence and a particular footing in the most advanced Philosophy of Science. I am thankful to Dr. Khadija Khaja for guiding me on multiculturalism and harmful cultural practices across the globe. Dr. Philip Ouellette surely deserves appreciation for teaching me online module development for my presentation on jata. I am grateful to Dr. Kathy Lay, Dr. Carol Hostetter, Dr. Carol Brooks Gardner, and Dr. Susan Hyatt for shaping my critical thinking and understanding of gender-related theory- practice continuum. I wish to acknowledge the guidance and appreciation received from v Dr. Bill Barton, Dr. Virginia Majewski and Dr. Hea-Won Kim during the coursework. I have enormous gratitude for Dr. Michael A. Patchner, the Dean of School of Social Work, for supporting and providing timely guidance and help to maintain my focus toward the completion of this doctoral study. I am privileged having a world-known scholar Dr. Carolyn Gentle-Genitty as my mentor who has supported and advised from time to time. I appreciate her contribution to my growth as a social work researcher. I appreciate the guidance from Debra Barker in formatting the dissertation and the technical assistance received from Sameeh Khamis and Jacob Baker. I would like to acknowledge the contribution of a few scholar friends who provided their editorial support and peer-reviews for this study. I am grateful to Jina Dcruz (Public Health Informatics Fellow, CDC, Atlanta), Abida Imran Sabir (The Institut National d’Etudes Démographiques [INED] France), Sumati Unkule-Tribhuvan (TM University, Pune), Dr. Leila Wood (Texas State University), Rashmi Malapur (Writer, Pune), Umangi Shah (TGES, Rajkot) for their timely and thorough reviews. I am thankful to Dr. Vimla Nadkarni (Chair,The International Association of Schools of Social Work [IASSW]) and Dr. Surinder Jaswal (Dean, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai) for encouraging and supporting me from time to time. I am highly obliged to Dr. Rajendra Kumbhar and Dr. A H Salunkhe for providing direction to my study and its ethno- methodological aspects. I would like to register my sincere respect and gratitude to Mrs. Gaurabai Salvade and Mrs. Kamal Ubale for their inspiring activism on Jata Removal and contributions in this research. I was fortunate to receive guidance from several activist-scholars affiliated with the Jata Removal Movement. Dr. Sudhir Kumbhar, Dr. Rajan Gavas, Prof. Vitthal vi Banne, Prof. Alkesh Ohal, and Mr. Prashant Potdar provided their valuable input and facilitated data collection for this study. I am thankful for the help received from Mrs. Rani Birange, Sachin Kamble, Mr. Tanaji Chavan, Mr. Alimoddin Sayyed, Mr. Prashant Patil, Ms. Mamta Koli, Mr. Chandrakant Dhaske, Mrs. Subhadra Sasane, Mr. Arjun Dhaske, Mr. Vikas Muniv and family, Ms. Bhupali Magare, Mrs. Sangita Magare, Ms. Shobha Kasbe, Mr. Nayan Magare during the most challenging data collection process. I am grateful to my nephews Mr. Akshay Dhaske, Mr. Deepak Kokane, Mr. Prasad Birange, and Mr. Pratik Dhaske for their prompt help with transportation to reach the interiors of rural parts of India for data collection and field visits. I am appreciative for the financial support received from several institutions and people. I would like to express my gratitude for the Indiana University School of Social Work and Graduate School at IUPUI for the scholarships, assistantships, and tuition remissions received since August 2009. I wish to acknowledge Smt Vimalabai Jatar Charitable Trust, Pune, for an interest-free student loan. I am thankful to several friends who have lent me money for survival during the doctoral studies. I am thankful to Ms. Seema Suman, Mr. Lalit Khandare and Mr. Haresh Dalvi for their support in the early part of my coursework. Without the support from Mr. Prashant Sude and Mr. Sumedh Sthul during the times of stringency and homelessness, this study would not have been possible. In addition, I would like to acknowledge the financial help and support received from Mr. Amitkumar Naphade, Ms. Shital Muke, and Dr. Sudhir Kumbhar. I deeply appreciate the financial help received from my friend Jina when I was totally broke. My next goal is to get out of this educational debt and make the investments of my friends meaningful by standing up to their expectations. vii Thanks are due to several friends and colleagues at Indiana University School of Social Work who have been part of the stimulating intellectual environment. I am grateful to my friends Kori Bloomquist Trainor, I-Hsuan Lin, Tanya Mulamba, Janice Vinson, Susan Glassburn Larimer, Dr. Amy Murphy-Nugen, and Dr. Zulkipli Lessy. In addition, Dr. Sanjeev Waghmare, Dr. Sreenath Prasad, Dr. Karthik Ramasamy, and Dr. Punitee Garyali have provided their valuable views on my work, and I acknowledge same. Although not directly for my research, many friends have been part of my hermeneutic circle who has always contributed significantly to my thought processes. I am thankful to Aseem Tribhuvan, Paulami De Sarkar, Ji Liu, Simona Gaarthuis, Dr. Chad Bauman, Dr. Anuradha Malshe, Shrivridhi Shukla, Pravin Soni, Somdutta and Ami Nhawkar, Kunal Bandopadhyay, Harpreet Banvait, Sashi Menon, and Rini Simon- Khanna. I am grateful to my dearest friend Prof. Manoj Mulik for the wonderful support during the study. I faced several health problems during the data collection and analysis process but was lucky to receive timely interventions and health advice from the best humanist homeopath and my guiding friend, Dr. Uttamkumar Barki. I appreciate his abiding naturalist commitment and help. I am highly grateful to Eddie B. Johnson and family for enduring encouragement and motivations throughout my doctoral study. My Mother Mrs. Anjani Dhaske and Aunt Mrs. Bhagirthi Dhaske have tremendously supported me during the data collection phase in India. I appreciate the contribution of all women in Dhaske family for their faith in me to conduct a study on a complicated gender issue. It was the most phenomenal process for me to remain among the rural Lingayat feminist women who are critical of institutional academic knowledge viii claims on women’s issues and who hate sitting in front of a laptop continuously. My brothers, Mr. Minanath Dhaske, Mr. Arjun Dhaske, and their respective families have tried very hard to contribute in my study; I am thankful to them for their honest attempts. Apart from the people mentioned in this study, there could be people and institutions I might have missed. Kindly consider this as an acknowledgement and appreciation of your humanist acts. I witness, love, and cherish my co-existence with you all in this wonderful universe. ix Govind Ganpati Dhaske THE LIVED EXPERIENCE OF WOMEN AFFECTED WITH MATTED HAIR IN SOUTHWESTERN INDIA Descriptions about the matting of hair given by medical practitioners show a significant commonality indicating it as a historic health problem prevalent across the globe, however with less clarity about its etiopathogenesis. In southwestern India, the emergence of matting of hair is considered a deific phenomenon; consequently, people worship the emerged matted hair and restrict its removal. Superstitious beliefs impose a ritualistic lifestyle on affected women depriving them of health and well-being, further leading to stigma, social isolation, and marginalization. For unmarried females, the matting of hair can result in dedication to the coercive devadasi custom whereby women end up marrying a god or goddess. To date, the state, academia, and disciplines such as medicine and psychology have paid far too little attention to the social, cultural, and health concerns of the women affected by matted hair. A Heideggerian interpretive phenomenological study was conducted to document the lived experience of women affected by the phenomenon of matting of hair. The subjective accounts of 13 jata- affected women selected through purposive sampling were documented to understand their health and human rights marginalization through harmful cultural practices surrounding matting of hair.