Health and Illness Narratives: Storytelling as Agency, Belonging and Community

Abstract (English)

Introduction
With a focus on health and illness narratives, and the storytelling about health in humanitarian settings, my ethnographic field research explores ways in which health is and has been shaped by individual and collective experiences of agency, belonging and community. This is a case study of Chepangs who are socio-politically and culturally marginalized indigenous communities for decades in Nepal. The ethnographic fieldwork aims to explore how they experienced illness and health, and how it has changed their socio-cultural, political, health seeking behavioral context in terms of agency, belonging, community.
Methods
This is an ethnographic fieldwork in Raksirang of Makwanpur district from July to August, 2024. The methods particularly included participant observations, in-depth interviews, participatory social mapping, case studies, and informal interactions with mothers, health workers, female community health volunteers, political leaders, civil society representatives, school teachers and community representatives.
Findings
The narrative analysis of telling and retelling of stories that open up new perspectives on the illness and health experiences of the marginalized ethnic minorities in terms of silences, collective consciousness, religious, indigenous knowledge and practices to heal the social sufferings and experience adaptive mechanisms in their families and communities. Through an ethnographic fieldwork, it attempts to explore and document social, cultural and moral realities such as absence of a missing loved one due to disaster or pandemics, not only in ritual and cultural sense, but also in a socio-political sense. Majority of the families affected by climate change, disaster and pandemics, first and foremost, rely on traditional or religious leaders and perform ritual practices for care and support.
Conclusions
Health narratives among poor, indigenous and socially marginalized communities are overwhelmingly considered as embodied experiences of their illness and health conditions. Their motivations, incentives, and capacities for demand creation are largely driven by the agency, collective consciousness, belongingness, community feelings and ownership. Therefore, storytelling is an innovative approach to share and understand the wider determinants of health, local governance, inclusive approaches and practices in rural communities of Nepal.