In the Name of Riwaj: an Ethnographic Study to Explore the Notion of Women Empowerment Among BISP Recipients in Rural Sakhro-Sindh, Pakistan

Abstract

Women empowerment is a national agenda for Pakistan and, one of its manifestations is the nationwide cash transfer program namely Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP). With the help of Bourdieu methodological paradigm of “habitus” this paper analyses empowerment among BISP recipients in their social settings where various social actors such as her husband and wadera of the village dominate her agency but, at the same time, women herself submits her agency to these social actors under the veil of riwaj (social customs). This ethnographic study reveals that the performance of submission among women follows an inner drive for conformation to riwaj that becomes a significant part of their habitus. Women’s continuous physical performance of submission inscribes moral ideas onto their body and, fuses both her outer obedience and inner feelings to a point where she herself endorses submission of agency to riwaj.