Abstract: Marginalization is described as a process, whereby a group of individuals are pushed to the margins of the society. The Baker is known as Kandur or Sofi in Kashmir and is a marginalized community. But, it is necessary to mention here that all Sofis are not Kandar. The family structure of Kandar community is patriarchal in nature. The head of the family has a final word in family decisions regarding the career, marriage, or any other important decision of a family. The joint family is no longer predominant in the baker (Kandar) community and nuclear family has emerging among them. The economic problems associated with joint families, lack of consensus among the family members, lack of privacy and lack of ample living space has forced the community to have nuclear families. In the Kandar community, there hasn’t been any appreciable change in the traditions of accepting decisions of heads of families. No matter what changes have occurred yet many households have strict moral discipline wherein every decision of their heads is well and straight way accepted by the members of family especially by the children. Based on a sample of 200 respondents selected out of 20 thrust areas of Urban Srinagar of Kashmir valley, the study examines the nature and role of family in Kander community of urban Srinagar. It traces how the Kandar community despite occupational issues like less income, poverty, low prestige, and little leisure and sleep disturbance have experienced some changes in family like disintegration of joint family to nuclear and in practising family planning practices. For the present study, an exploratory research design was used A simple random sampling technique was used to collect information from Kandur household’s members.
Keywords: Nature, role, family, marginalization, community, Kandur, Kashmir.
Title: Nature and Role of Family in Marginalized Communities: A Study
Author: Dr. Manzoor Hussain, Farooq Ahmad Khan
International Journal of Interdisciplinary Research and Innovations
ISSN 2348-1218 (print), ISSN 2348-1226 (online)
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