Coping with crisis is a culturally situated process shaped by models of self, morality, and notions of ‘good life’ rather than by individual stress regulation alone. Drawing on cultural psychology frameworks, this study examines how parents of young children in low-resource settings coped with adversity situated within the context of COVID-19 pandemic. Using a constructivist qualitative design, in-depth interviews were conducted with 16 parents of children under six years of age belonging from economically marginalized communities living in urban Delhi, India. Data were analyzed through Reflexive Thematic Analysis, guided by Kirmayer’s (2007) model of Cultural Configurations of the Self. These narratives illustrate how coping emerged as a moral, relational, and faith-based practice under conditions of adversity and uncertainty. Sociocentric coping reflects a relational orientation in which well-being is understood as collective, caregiving is regarded as morally central, and emotional regulation is oriented toward preserving family harmony. Cosmocentric coping reflects an orientation toward higher-order forces through which uncertainty is accepted, distress is externalized, and endurance cultivated. The study challenges individualistic models of coping and highlights how care, endurance, and meaning-making are collectively organized in contexts of structural vulnerability. The paper extends theoretical understanding of coping with crisis and calls for a contextually grounded model of parental coping.
This article examines the seasonal mobility of Kashmiri pheriwale in Guwahati to show how South Asia’s internal borderlands shape economic practice, social belonging, and everyday trade. Drawing on ethnographic research, it argues that pheri is a relational form of trade sustained by trust, familiarity, and long-term interpersonal networks. Moving from one historically marginal and politically sensitive borderland to another, traders occupy a liminal position—integrated into Assamese neighborhoods through repeated interactions and hospitality, yet vulnerable due to informality, weak institutional protection, and association with a conflict-affected homeland. Situating these experiences within debates on frontier governance, informal economies, and circulation, the article demonstrates how internal borders function as zones of both opportunity and uncertainty. It highlights how intimate, person-to-person trade challenges dominant imaginaries of urban modernity centered on digital and formal retail, underscoring the resilience of mobility-based, trust-driven economies within India’s internal frontiers.
