Socio-Cultural Perception and Interpretation of Health and Illness: A Study in the Korail Slum of Dhaka City

It is strenuous to define the meaning of health and illness as people across the cultures and socio-cultural context perceive, experience and define health and illness differently and offer meanings according to the cultures they belong and live everyday life. On the other hand, there is no universal definition of health because it depends on what individual considers to be and not to be since their subjective experiences. So, no single definition and explanation can be sufficient enough for exploring meaning of health and illness for subjects as it can be termed as multidimensional phenomena which include physical, socio-cultural, emotional and spiritual aspects. It is also noticeable that in country context, there are many works on the etiology of illness, health seeking behavior and different medical systems, but there is rare research on the issue of meaning of health and illness. From this point of view, this study is an attempt to investigate the way people perceive, experience and explain their illness and health from their subjective position living in a slum popularly termed as cultural context. This research will also explore the way people are changing their meaning to health and illness due to their migration in urban areas. The research was conducted in a slum area in Dhaka city using in-depth, and semi-structured ethnographic methods.