Papers by arumugam indira
International Journal of Advance Research in Community Health Nursing
International Journal of Midwifery and Nursing Practice
Background: Alcoholism refers to the use of alcoholic beverages to the point of causing damage to... more Background: Alcoholism refers to the use of alcoholic beverages to the point of causing damage to the individual, society or both. In India the alcohol addiction is more common and the disorders are also increasing. About 75% of the adults in India are regular drinkers. Most of the family problems and other violence are arising due to alcohol consumption. Aim: The aim of the study was to assess the prevalence of alcoholism and psychosocial problems among adults. Objectives: 1. To assess the prevalence of alcoholism among adults. 2. To identify the psychosocial problems related to alcoholism among adults. 3. To find the relationship between prevalence of alcoholism and psychosocial problems. 4. To find out the association between prevalence of alcoholism and psychosocial problems with selected socio-demographic variables. Methodology: 100 adults from rural area, Akkuthotta, Nellore were selected by using stratified random sampling method. Results: The study concluded that almost half of the adults 42(42%) were mild alcoholics and 44(44%) adults had psychological problems due to alcoholism. The co-relation between the prevalence of alcoholism and psychosocial problems was +0.89.
Anthropological Forum
Some sacrifices are cosmogonic acts. Along with (re)creating the world, they create male social b... more Some sacrifices are cosmogonic acts. Along with (re)creating the world, they create male social bonds by ritually appropriating and transcending women’s corporeal reproductive powers. Departing from these androcentric representations, this paper considers when, why and how (differently) women sacrifice. I compare an exclusively female domestic worship to the mother/midwife goddess Periyacci in Singapore from which men are forbidden with a male-centric sacrifice to tutelary deities by a patrilineage in rural Tamil Nadu, India. Focusing on women as active ritual sponsors and sacrificers, rather than as is usual, ritually prohibited and symbolically denigrated objects, I scrutinise sacrifice’s avowed theological, ritual and ethical claims regarding reproduction. Women’s native fertility, customarily denigrated to counterintuitively locate reproduction in the sacrificial covenant between men and their tutelaries, is centred in Periyacci’s worship. Dwelling on the body and its frailties, failures and infertility, women-led sacrifice demonstrates that life is only possible through women. Women’s actual sacrifice of their own bodies and labours to organically generate and nurture life negates the need for the dramatic symbolic sacrifice of animal surrogates. Entangling body and mind, sacrifice and subsistence, ritual and the routine, Periyacci’s worship offers alternative ways of thinking about sacrifice and its creative imperatives. Sacrifice need not be spectacular event but can also be an everyday sacrament.
Anthropology and Humanism
SummaryEthnography involves using the self as the mechanism to try to understand others and their... more SummaryEthnography involves using the self as the mechanism to try to understand others and their life worlds. How is knowledge and knowledge production affected by the apparatus of knowing, the ethnographer experiencing cataclysms in their personal life? In this article, I grapple with the fraught dilemmas of doing fieldwork on mother goddesses and ritual cults premised on the cultivation of fertility while experiencing infertility and undergoing assisted reproductive treatments (ART). My recovery from pregnancy losses and fertility failures was compromised by my research on fertility, which continuously resurrected my trauma. Juxtaposing research on ritual technologies with personal experience of biomedical treatments—different means to overcome the limits of nature to bring about reproductive success—I foreground the ceding of human control and agency demanded by both therapies. My ethnographic writing similarly loosened to admit emotions, ambivalences, and absences that I had no...
Religions of South Asia
In the literature on sacred food in Hinduism, vegetarian offerings to Sanskritic deities (Sanskri... more In the literature on sacred food in Hinduism, vegetarian offerings to Sanskritic deities (Sanskrit naivedya, prasada; Tamil naivettiyam, pracatam) are privileged. If meat is mentioned, it is in reference to sacrificial worship; and even so, the analysis often stops at ritual killing. Here, however, I focus on the wealth of religious meanings and ritual dynamics inherent to the ritual display and communal feasting—incorporating, if not centred on, meat—known as pataiyal or feast-offerings, performed in or after worship. I describe two forms of these feast-offerings: (1) following sacrificial worship to tutelary deities in rural Tamil Nadu and (2) during worship to divinized ancestors in Singapore. Departing from Brahminical exegeses, I probe the meanings and merits of meat offerings from the perspective of those immersed in the agrarian productive process (farmers and those from farming traditions) for whom eating meat, if not killing animals, is routine. Meat offerings, I argue, are...
Gastronomica
“You always know when family is visiting from overseas. Outside their houses, threaded through tw... more “You always know when family is visiting from overseas. Outside their houses, threaded through twine and hung on fences and poles, will be chunks of goat meat and fish drying in the sun.” So ventured my mother’s sister, Chinnappa, who lives in Vaduvur, a village in central Tamil Nadu. In summer, temperatures in this village can rise to 45 degrees C (113 degrees F). So punishing is the sun that people try not to be outdoors between 10 am and 4 pm. Harsh as it is on humans, this kind of heat is ideal for preserving food. Drawing out moisture, the sun’s heat prevents mold and musty odors and arrests decay. On sunny days, in yards and out on open-roof terraces, women unfurl old dhotis and tarpaulins and spread their stores of spices, grains, and pulses to dry. They lay bounties from gardens, fields, ponds, and markets out to toast,...
Material Religion, 2020
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Monster Anthropology, 2020
How can gods be monsters and vice versa? This chapter explores the interpenetrations between sacr... more How can gods be monsters and vice versa? This chapter explores the interpenetrations between sacrality and monstrosity in a village in Tamil Nadu, India. Minis are amoral fertility spirits which must be appeased to secure agricultural productivity. Muniswarar is a tutelary deity who guards against chaos and evil. Minis and Muniswarar are not absolutely distinct entities but part of a spectrum of sacredness premised upon ritual attempts to govern the land's volatile potency and channel it to instrumentalist purposes. Based on how the Minis' and Muniswarar's shared ritual cult disrupts stable categories-deities and demons and good and evil-I offer two premises to demonstrate how the sacred is also inherently monstrous. First, the sacred possesses an insatiable appetite which cannot be satisfied through mere human rituals and has an excessive wrath when defied. The sacred will always want more than the devotees can give. Second, the sacred inevitably eschews cultural conceptions and social expectations. It has a life that always exceeds the human grasp. Finally, I take up this volume's brief to consider monsters in contexts of change and detail how amid gathering socioeconomic transformations and habitat destruction, the sacred is becoming even scarcer. It refuses, unlike good monsters, to demonstrate and to forewarn. It resists being probed for meaning. It just wants to be. This meta-sociality is what makes the sacred truly monstrous.
International Journal of Scientific Research in Science and Technology, 2016
Family planning methods plays a major role in combating the population growth in developing count... more Family planning methods plays a major role in combating the population growth in developing country like India and also plays a crucial role in safeguarding the health of the women. The present preliminary study was carried out with the aim to assess the knowledge regarding temporary contraceptive methods.30 reproductive age (15-45 years) group women selected by using randomized technique and data obtained by interview method after getting informed consent and data documented. Statistical analysis performed. The finding explored that out of 30 women 9 (30%) women had inadequate knowledge, 17 (57%) were had moderate, and 4(13%) women were had adequate knowledge. Education of the subjects will play an important role in the knowledge of temporary contraceptives methods.
International Journal of Scientific Research in Science and Technology, 2017
Mental health is a level of psychological wellbeing or an absence of mental disorder. Mental illn... more Mental health is a level of psychological wellbeing or an absence of mental disorder. Mental illness is a condition that impacts a person thinking, feeling or mood and effect The present study aims to assess the IQ among mental illness adults. Quantitative approach and cross sectional Descriptive design was adopted for the study. 30 mental illness adults were selected by using non probability convenient sampling technique. Data was collected by using Binet Stanfort Intelligence Test. Data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The study findings revealed that the 10(33.3%) mentally ill adults are educable, 13(43.3%) mentally ill adults are trainable, 6(20%) adults are dependant retarded and only 1 (3.3%) mentally ill adult require life support. The socio demographic variable gender has shown significant association with level of IQ. The study concluded that majority of mentally ill adults are trainable. Hence there is a need to educate and counsel the mentally il...
International Journal of Multidisciplinary Education and Research, 2017
International Journal of Scientific Research in Science and Technology, 2017
The study aims are to assess the knowledge of nursing students regarding anecdotal records and to... more The study aims are to assess the knowledge of nursing students regarding anecdotal records and to identify the relationship between the knowledge level and socio demographic variables of II nd Year BSC nursing students. The quantitative research approach and cross sectional descriptive design was adopted for the study. The study was conducted in Narayana College of nursing in Nellore. 30 II nd Year BSC nursing students were selected by using Non Probability Convenience Sampling Technique. Structured Questionnaire method was used for collecting the information from samples. Data analysis done by using descriptive and inferential statistics. The results revealed that 7(23%) had moderately adequate knowledge and 23(77%) students had inadequate knowledge regarding anecdotal records. The study concluded that majority of students has inadequate knowledge regarding anecdotal records .hence there is a need to educate regarding the anecdotal records to nursing students.
Religions of South Asia, 2021
Village and tutelary deities have been characterized as fierce, capricious, or at least ambiguous... more Village and tutelary deities have been characterized as fierce, capricious, or at least ambiguous. This article explores another facet of these polysemous divinities: their kinship with their adherents. Against the thrust of recent emphases on the gentrification of rural cults, the interventions of ritual specialists and the establishing of distance between deities and laity, these gods remain messily tactile and persist in being directly touchable. Villagers make their gods themselves with profane materials and through routine actions; enact rituals to them unmediated by priests, marked by informality and tinged with irreverence; and relate to them through instrumentalist but loving interactions. From the mundane acts and exegetic narratives through which devotees make sense of and organize their religious experiences, I materialize a local theology that articulates the nature of these gods and how they become present and active in human social worlds. Privileging co-residence, sub...
American Behavioral Scientist, 2020
What happens to deities when their devotees migrate? Village deities are wrought of a particular ... more What happens to deities when their devotees migrate? Village deities are wrought of a particular landscapes and a specific people. Refusing to remain rooted to icons, shrines, or sites, they wander; albeit only within their own jurisdictions. Examining the resonance of Periyachi—the mother and midwife goddess—originally from rural Tamil Nadu and now in urban Singapore, I document the effects of dislocation from their homelands on intensely local deities. In Singapore, Periyachi acquired more regular veneration and a spectacular ritual complex. But what has she also lost? While the goddess remains potent, her nature has subtly shifted. She who had crossed the seas no longer even crosses her own temple’s threshold. Migration has immobilized a once vital agentic force. From being immanent in her autochthonous landscape, manifesting herself directly and insistent on her own will, Periyachi has become marooned in icons, confined to temples and reliant on humans to represent her. Despite ...
International Journal of Scientific Research in Science and Technology, 2019
Background: Nursing the unconscious patient can be a challenging experience. Unconscious patients... more Background: Nursing the unconscious patient can be a challenging experience. Unconscious patients have no control over themselves or their environment and thus are highly dependent on the nurse. The skills required to care for unconscious patients are not specific to critical care and theatres as unconscious patients are nursed in a variety of clinical settings. Nursing such patients can be a source of anxiety for nurses. Aim: The aim of the study was to assess the level of knowledge regarding care of unconscious patients among staff nurses. Objectives: 1. To determine the level of knowledge regarding physical examination among staff nurses. 2. To associate the level of knowledge with selected demographic variables. Methodology: 100 staff nurses working at Narayana Medical College Hospital were selected by using purposive sampling method. Results: Regarding the level of knowledge among staff nurses, 17 (17%) had adequate knowledge, 76(76%) had moderate knowledge and 7(7%) had inadeq...
International Journal of Scientific Research in Science and Technology, 2019
Background: Splints may be used in all stages of musculoskeletal injuries. Initially, splints may... more Background: Splints may be used in all stages of musculoskeletal injuries. Initially, splints may be used for fractures because they are not circumferential there by accommodating swelling without risks of constriction. They are easy to apply and remove, allowing for monitoring of soft tissue and skin integrity. A splint may be definitive treatment for sprains and some fractures. Splints may also be used after initial treatment with casting to provide continued support. There are various forms of splints made of wood states to prefabricated splints and immobilizers are pneumatic walker and wrist immobilization. Aim: The aim of the study was to assess the level of knowledge and practice of staff nurses regarding various splints. Objectives: 1. To assess the knowledge and practice regarding admission process. 2. To find an association between knowledge and practice with socio demographic variables. Methodology: 100 staff nurses working in NMCH, Nellore were selected by using convenien...
International Journal of Scientific Research in Science and Technology, 2019
Background: Physical examination is an integral part of nursing care. It is the basic nursing car... more Background: Physical examination is an integral part of nursing care. It is the basic nursing care. A good physical examination leads to identification of the client – status, strengths and concern for nursing diagnosis. This provides discretion for nursing implementation and alleviation of client concern. Assessing a client health status is a major component of nursing care. A complete health assessment may be conducted starting at the head and proceeding in systematic manner downward (head-to-foot) assessment. Aim: The aim of the study was to assess the level of knowledge physical examination. Objectives: 1. To determine the level of knowledge regarding physical examination among IIIrd year GNM students. 2. To associate the level of knowledge with selected demographic variables. Methodology: 30 III yr GNM students posted at Narayana Medical College Hospital were selected by using simple random sampling method. Results: Regarding the level of knowledge among GNM III yr students, 6,...
International Journal of Scientific Research in Science and Technology, 2019
Background: Surgical asepsis refers to destruction of organisms before they enter the body, it is... more Background: Surgical asepsis refers to destruction of organisms before they enter the body, it is used in caring for open wounds and in surgical procedure. Surgical asepsis is the medical practice of maintaining sterility whenever dressing wound or performing any kind of surgery to prevent cross infection. Aseptic technique are used in infection control to prevent cross infection between health care worker and between patients. Aim: The aim of the study was to assess the level of knowledge and practice of staff nurses regarding surgical asepsis. Objectives: 1. To assess the practice regarding surgical asepsis. 2. To find an association between practice with socio demographic variables. Methodology: 100 staff nurses working in NMCH, Nellore were selected by using convenience sampling method. Results: Regarding the level of practice among staff nurses, 10(10%) of them had good practice 80(80%) of them had moderate practice and 10(10%) had poor practice.
Social Anthropology, 2020
This paper is about pleasure, specifically the pleasure that women take in kinship. Contrary to i... more This paper is about pleasure, specifically the pleasure that women take in kinship. Contrary to its diminished importance within the discipline, kinship still resonates strongly for many of our interlocutors. Why is kinship so captivating? Kinship's continued significance, I argue, is attributable not so much to its utility or morality but to the pleasure it evokes. In capturing the major implications of kinship, anthropologists have barely considered the small joys of living together with kin. Pleasure is understood in two terms. First, the experiential, where it is incidental to routine work and ritual obligations but is also deliberately sought and actively indulged in. Second, the aesthetic, where thinking abstractly and constructing genealogies are not simply anthropologists illusions, which is itself a form of pleasure for our interlocutors. Focusing on pleasure does not detract from structural constraints and customary suffering but textures everyday experiences of kinship. Offering another category to think with and opportunities to rethink extant ones, pleasure forces us to confront kinship's open-ended and improvisational qualities. While kinship's consequence has been well scrutinised, privileging pleasure allows us to grapple with the insouciance with which kinship is also lived, felt and becomes taken for granted.
Contributions to Indian Sociology, 2019
This article considers the gift as a medium of politics in two parallel domains, namely the elect... more This article considers the gift as a medium of politics in two parallel domains, namely the electoral and the ritual. Juxtaposing the material transactions during a rural election campaign and the distribution of meat after a sacrifice in a vernacular polity, it traces the continuing interpenetrations between philanthropy and politics in lubricating political associations. The properties of the political gift and the proprieties of its giving are what create political value. The right to govern is premised upon the prerogative to give. The right to give, however, is premised on the obligation to receive. The coercive gift—which one is not allowed to reciprocate but more importantly does not want and is forced to receive—is the animus of a politics that is premised upon caste and class hierarchies that also reverberate through democratic governance. What compels the political gift’s receiving, and deliberately negates its reciprocity—its spirit or force—is the implicit threat of viol...
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Papers by arumugam indira