eBook - PDF
Running on Hope
Female Community Health Labor in Rajasthan, India
- 162 pages
- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF
Running on Hope
Female Community Health Labor in Rajasthan, India
About this book
Throughout India, Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) visit households in their communities to deliver essential health services and link community members with key health benefits. Like many other female Community Health Workers across the world, ASHAs are often portrayed as virtuous, passive volunteers, selflessly providing services to their neighbors.
The reality is more complicated and much more interesting. Drawing on ethnographic work in Rajasthan, Running on Hope follows ASHAs through striking personal transformations. From their positions as rural daughters?in?lawāa particularly low?power position in RajasthanāASHAs have, over years of work, gained unprecedented autonomy for young rural women. They have also gained a deep understanding of what many argue is the exploitation involved in their low?ranking position in the health system. ASHAs often earn less than $100 per month for extensive work, well below the legal minimum wage.
To counter this, many ASHAs have joined unionsāan endeavor that has ultimately proven disappointing: union leaders' desires for political advancement are often at odds with ASHAs' own needs. However, ASHAs do not have connections, money, or social power to organize effectively on their own, without a political patron. In Running on Hope, authors Svea Closser and Surendra Singh Shekhawat interview women who work as ASHAs to learn about their organizing goals, their roles in their community as conduits to health education and resources, and their hopes for a better future.
The reality is more complicated and much more interesting. Drawing on ethnographic work in Rajasthan, Running on Hope follows ASHAs through striking personal transformations. From their positions as rural daughters?in?lawāa particularly low?power position in RajasthanāASHAs have, over years of work, gained unprecedented autonomy for young rural women. They have also gained a deep understanding of what many argue is the exploitation involved in their low?ranking position in the health system. ASHAs often earn less than $100 per month for extensive work, well below the legal minimum wage.
To counter this, many ASHAs have joined unionsāan endeavor that has ultimately proven disappointing: union leaders' desires for political advancement are often at odds with ASHAs' own needs. However, ASHAs do not have connections, money, or social power to organize effectively on their own, without a political patron. In Running on Hope, authors Svea Closser and Surendra Singh Shekhawat interview women who work as ASHAs to learn about their organizing goals, their roles in their community as conduits to health education and resources, and their hopes for a better future.
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Yes, you can access Running on Hope by Svea Closser,Surendra Singh Shekhawat in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Sozialwissenschaften & Kultur- & Sozialanthropologie. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Contents
- People in This Book
- Acronyms
- Preface: Our Collaboration
- 1. Call Whenever You Need Me: Rajasthanās Community Health Workers
- 2. We Talk to Everyone: The Work of an ASHA
- 3. We Have Honorable Work, but Thatās All: Womenās Labor in Rajasthan
- 4. If Thereās No Problem at Home, There Will Be No Problem Outside: Shifts in Family Structures
- 5. Iāll Fight For Them: ASHAs as Leaders
- 6. Our Union Canāt Stop Us: Leaving the Unions Behind
- Conclusion: Toward Truly Supported Community Health Workers
- Acknowledgments
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index