Antony Palackal – författare

Expert authors delve into key cultural and political factors that impacted public perception and policy, including the credibility of information sources, levels of knowledge and preparedness, and the primary fears and behaviors that emerged. Chapters cover responses across Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe, integrating insights from medical professionals, scientists, educators, and individuals in various socio-economic contexts. Reflecting on lessons learned from COVID-19, the book suggests valuable guidance for future pandemic preparedness, emphasizing the influence of culture and politics on our actions and attitudes during global health emergencies.

This interdisciplinary book is a helpful resource for students and researchers in political science, public policy, sociology, public administration and management, and public health. Policymakers, health professionals, and educators will also benefit from its recommendations for handling future health crises.

The volume revolves around the theme ‘inclusive oppositions’ in social sciences that address the issue of making of distinctions and create artificial dichotomies and dualistic view of society. It is set against the currents of systematic reduction of anthropodiversity and psychodiversity, which appears as a pathology of the current neo-liberalist and colonialist model of development. The volume is an attempt to overcome the colonial tendencies and forces to ‘standardize’ and ‘homogenize’ various categories and institutions in society by establishing structural relationality and intersectionality between the parts of the whole ecosystem where in the human and non-human intersect and interact.

The volume brings together a unique collaboration in the field of Cultural Psychology and offers the intellectual tools to grasp how a syncretic understanding of Identity and Culture unfolds, particularly in the key domain of gender. The chapters and commentaries uncover cultural dynamics and identity formation from a specific location, the region of Kerala in south-western India. The chapters and commentaries in this volume illustrates that Kerala is a cultural micro-cosmos, in which gender, identity, religion, ethnicity, caste, global market and tradition intersect to create complex and multiple subjects that do not fit in binary categorizations.

The compiled volume will be of great value to scholars, researchers and academicians in Social Sciences, particularly Cultural Psychology, Social Psychology, Sociology, Social Work, Political Science, Philosophy, Anthropology and Economics.

Both nationally and internationally, the south Indian state of Kerala has been an object of study for its matrilineal kinship organization among some communities, as well as its achievements in education, literacy, and life expectancy for women against a weak economic base. Nonetheless, scholars have drawn attention to a paradox in Kerala’s model of development, namely women’s deteriorating social position in Kerala and the rise in violence against women. Against this backdrop, this book explores the intersections of gender, sexuality, marriage, family and kinship as related to the matrilineal Nayar community in Kerala. Chapters unravel the interplay between the triple categories of gender, power and social development as they play out at the micro, meso, and macro levels of society, probing the ways in which Nayar women practice agency. Ultimately, the authors explore how the strength of the Nayar community can be used as a case study toward circumventing the prevailing gender paradox and re-imagine a more liberated, empowered and self-reliant woman not only in Kerala, but in India at large.

This book will be of interest to scholars in sociology, gender studies, and development studies, particularly those with a focus on South Asia.