Locus of control response to the chronic pain, Culture based or personality based?

If you got a chronic pain that lasts more than three months, what’s your reaction to it? Paper by Bates: “Control, Culture and Chronic pain.” tried to explain that the “ locus of control” beliefs influence people’s responses to the chronic pain experiences. Furthermore, the LOC style has this intimate relationship with the ethnic or cultural background.

Form comparing the research data from New England and Puerto Rico patients, Bates etc concluded that after one years of emergency reaction of the chronic pain, then they would developed in two directions: positive adaptation and negative adaptation which depends on the individual internal LOC or External LOC style, that the definition as in the paper: “An internal LOC style involves a reported cognitive perception or expectation that life events and circumstances are the result of one’s own actions. By comparison, an external LOC style includes the perception or expectation that life events and circumstances are beyond one’s own control, and rest in the hands of fate, chance, or other people.”

Even though the results consistent with the conclusion, I have some doubts related to the case study been provided:

“However, she never gave up her dream. She married her first husband when she was in her late teens and soon thereafter had a son. She reported repeated physical and psychological abuse by her first husband. Nonetheless, while married to him, Maria finally was able to attend and finish high schoolover her husband’s strenuous objections and despite repeated beatings. During that period Maria had to hide her school books from her husband and study by flashlight after he had gone to sleep to avoid his anger. With great determination, she struggled to leave this first marriage and continue her education. Living in extreme poverty at the time, she managed to overcome many obstacles to obtain a divorce and complete undergraduate and graduate degrees while caring for her son. Maria said, “I was determined and fighting to get that degree.” She succeeded and became a health professional. Later she married another health professional and she said this 30-year marriage was a wonderful partnership full of love and caring. After completing her advanced degree, Maria worked in a health-care field until semi-retirement about 5 years ago. She still engages in consultations and volunteer activities.”

This is one of the typical cases that was presented in the paper, what make me wondering is which way that the patients will response to the pain is more depend on their personal will. Whether they have the will power or not to change their socioeconomic status, which is one of the most important influencing factors that may contribute to the culture composition.

The whiteness of binaries that erase the Global South: On Communicative Inversions and the invitation to Vijay Prashad in Aotearoa

When I learned through my activist networks that the public intellectual Vijay Prashad was coming to Aotearoa, I was filled with joy. In my early years in the U.S., when learning the basics of the struggle against the fascist forces of Hindutva, I came in conversation with Vijay's work. Two of his critical interventions, the book, The Karma of Brown Folk , and the journal article " The protean forms of Yankee Hindutva " co-authored with Biju Matthew and published in Ethnic and Racial Studies shaped my early activism. These pieces of work are core readings in understanding the workings of Hindutva fascism and how it mobilizes cultural tropes to serve fascist agendas. Much later, I felt overjoyed learning about his West Bengal roots and his actual commitment to the politics of the Left, reflected in the organising of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), a political register that shaped much of my earliest lessons around Global South resistance, collectivization, and orga...

Zionist hate mongering, the race/terror trope, and the Free Speech Union: Part 1

March 15, 2019. It was a day of terror. Unleashed by a white supremacist far-right terrorist. Driven by hate for brown people. Driven by Islamophobic hate. Earlier in the day, I had come across a hate-based hit piece targeting me, alongside other academics, the University of Auckland academic Professor Nicholas Rowe , Professor Richard Jackson at Otago University, Professor Kevin P Clements at Otago University, Dr. Rose Martin from University of Auckland and Dr. Nigel Parsons at Massey University. Titled, "More extremists in New Zealand Universities," the article threw in the labels "terror sympathisers" and "extremist views." Written by one David Cumin and hosted on the website of the Israel Institute of New Zealand, the article sought to create outrage that academics critical of Israeli settler colonialism and apartheid are actually employed by universities in New Zealand. Figure 1: The web post written by David Cumin on the site of Israel Institute ...

Upper caste Indian women in the diaspora, DEI, and the politics of hate

Figure 1: Trump, Vance and their partners responding to the remarks by Mariann Edgar Budde Emergent from the struggles of the civil rights movement , led by African Americans , organized against the oppressive history of settler colonialism and slavery that forms the backbone of US society, structures around diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) formed an integral role in forging spaces for diverse recognition and representation. These struggles around affirmative action, diversity, equity and inclusion were at the heart of the changes to white only immigration policies, building pathways for migration of diverse peoples from the Global South. The changes to the immigration policies created opportunities for Indians to migrate to the US, with a rise of Indian immigration into the US since the 1970s into educational institutions, research and development infrastructures, and technology-finance infrastructures. These migratory structures into the US were leveraged by l...

Mohan Dutta: Culture-Centered Approach

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