Health as Submission and Social Responsibilities

Abstract

By examining women's experiences with type II diabetes, we explore how illness can provide resources to construct meanings of everyday life in Javanese culture. We conducted in-depth interviews with 30 female participants in Central Java, Indonesia, and adopted grounded theory for data analysis. We identified four themes that diabetes serves as resources for women in Indonesia to (a) normalize suffering, (b) resist social control, (c) accept fate, and (d) validate faith. We concluded by noting three unique aspects of Javanese women's illness management. First, through the performance of submission, our participants demonstrated spirituality and religiosity as essential elements of health. Second, diabetes empowers individuals in everyday suffering through two divergent processes: embracing submission and resisting control. Finally, diabetes provides opportunities for individuals within a social network to (re)negotiate social responsibilities. In summary, diabetes provides unique resources to empower our participants to obtain voices that they otherwise would not have had.

Health-Seeking Behavior of People in Indonesia: A Narrative Review

“…Indonesian people consider themselves healthy if they can perform their everyday activities without disruption. Thus, people generally sought help when symptoms hindered these [21,22,25,28,37,39,42,45,51,56,66,67,71,77]. For example, Eeuwijk [71] described that most older people sought care from health professionals for rheumatism because it hindered their activities.…”

“…Health is a physical status that cannot be achieved without individuals' spiritual wellbeing. Life in general should be balanced physically and spiritually, between individual and social life, so that a status of "harmony" can be reached [42,57]. The Indonesian government recognizes six official religions: Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism [105].…”

“…The Indonesian government recognizes six official religions: Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism [105]. Regardless of specific religion, people tend to believe that health is God's gift and illness is their fate, sometimes viewed as God's punishment [28,42,46].…”

“…Indonesian people's choice of health providers is determined by complex and interrelated factors: sociodemographic characteristics, influence of significant others, sociocultural beliefs, perception about diseases and their causality, and perception of medical services including accessibility and availability, particularly in rural and areas, and its related cost [23,[28][29][30]34,35,38,[40][41][42][45][46][47][48]52,[54][55][56][57]59,60,64,65,67,72].…”

On the Role of Spirituality and Religiosity in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus Management—A Systematic Review

“…The flowchart of the study selection process is demonstrated in Figure 1 (Figure according to Prisma statement). More than half of the studies (13 studies) included were qualitative (Samuel-Hodge et al, 2000; Daaleman, Kuckelman Cobb, & Frey, 2001;Iwasaki et al, 2005;Devlin et al, 2006;Polzer & Miles, 2007;Cattich & Knudson-Martin, 2009;Casarez et al, 2010;Unantenne, Warren, Canaway, & Manderson, 2013;Gupta & Anandarajah, 2014;Pitaloka & Hsieh, 2015;Rivera-Hernandez, 2015;Namageyo-Funa, Muilenburg, & Wilson, 2015; Spruill, Magwood, Nemeth, & P. Darvyri et al…”