Anthropology of Disaster: A Case Study of the Second Generation of Survivors of the Iran-Iraq War (Case of Children of Spinal Cord Amputation Veterans)

Purpose: Anthropologists study war as a "social event" in terms of its nature, origin, method, dimensions, and contexts, and attach importance to its cultural and social consequences. The imposed war has affected various areas of society, especially anthropological dimensions, and is still not without effect. However, the inattention and silence of humanities scholars, especially in Iranian society, in this regard is clearly visible. War is one of the greatest human and natural disasters in the world. In the Iran-Iraq war, we are faced with one of the greatest human losses in the country. As its survivors, spinal cord amputation veterans have an important position in understanding and explaining the issue of war. Their children, as a new and dynamic generation after the war and the post-war period, have many problems and issues in their lived experience of this family situation. The important question in this research is what direct and indirect effects will the disaster have on the families of veterans and what experience do the children of veterans face in the family context as important members of the family in terms of individual and social dimensions?
Methodology: In accordance with the subject and purpose of this study, which is to examine the lived experience of children of spinal cord amputation veterans, the adopted method is the one called phenomenological. Phenomenological method is a branch of qualitative method that is different from quantitative and survey methods. Qualitative method is a desirable method in the field of anthropological studies and a method that provides sufficient opportunity and possibility for the researcher and social researcher to understand and represent the complexities of the subject. The subjects of the study are children of spinal cord amputation veterans in terms of "gender" as "boys" and "girls" and also in terms of "age" as the minimum age at which a person can easily answer questions and there are no restrictions at older ages. The samples will be limited to the "spatial area" of Tehran and Qom provinces.
Findings: The results obtained indicate their typology into three groups: 1. Highly dependent in terms of family relationships and interactions 2. Avoidant of family and harsh behavioral reactions towards family 3. Finally, children who inevitably took a stance of tolerance and tolerance. The most important reasons for the creation of problems in the second and third groups are multiple vulnerabilities in the lived experience of these children. From the individual perspective: psychological and psychological trauma after the accident, physical trauma resulting from membership in such families, from the family perspective: role-playing instead of parents, the upbringing model of self-centered parents, conflicts resulting from adoption, semantic and identity conflicts within the family, from a cultural perspective: lack of social support and the negative effects of the political system's support in the form of purely propaganda and exaggerated policy-making. Considering the approaches of cognitive anthropology and disaster anthropology, an attempt has been made to understand and analyze the lived experience of children of spinal cord amputation veterans and to understand and appreciate the quality of their lives