Constructing pious identities through biomedicine: A case study of the Ismailis of Hunza, Pakistan
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Description
This dissertation examines the motivations for and consequences of biomedical health care use in a medically plural region in the Hunza valley of northern Pakistan. Hunza valley has undergone significant social, economic, and political changes in the past twenty-five years, including the construction of the Karakoram Highway and the rapid expansion of development programs initiated by non-government organizations that offer biomedical services, education, and financial and welfare opportunities to inhabitants. The primary force behind these changes is the Aga Khan, the affluent and influential supreme spiritual leader of the Ismaili sect of Shi'a Islam. Since a majority of Hunzakuts (inhabitants of the Hunza Valley) are followers of the Ismaili sect, the expansion of biomedical health care and other modernization policies promoted by subsidiary organizations of Aga Khan Foundation and Aga Khan Development Network have religious significance. I explore religion as it affects changes occurring in Hunza, and more specifically, to understand the circumstances affecting Hunzakuts' medical ideology and health-seeking behavior The results of this research show that health care decisions are important sources of social information and can be venues through which individuals actively seek to effect changes in their social relationships. Ismaili Hunzakuts are preferentially choosing biomedicine and other aspects of development in an attempt to exhibit their faith publicly in a religiously prescribed manner and reinforce their own sense of morality and piety. This study also shows that the arena of health care serves as an alternate social context for creating, redefining, and renegotiating one's religious identity and for acquiring religious prestige. Secondary benefits of an affiliation with biomedicine include economic benefits and acquiring political power that can contribute to the restructuring of existing social hierarchies This study has major implications for the understanding of Western-based constructs of religion and secular and for the relationship between Islam, development, and modernization. Findings show that Islam is compatible with a Western understanding of progress and modernity, but it has achieved it on its own terms through religious means rather than by relegating religion to the private sphere