Table 4 Categories, subcategories and codes obtained from interviews with Kolber women
Paradigm structure | Categories | Subcategories | Codes |
|---|---|---|---|
Causal conditions | Individual characteristics | Low empowerment | Illiteracy, lack of sufficiency expertise |
Personality characteristics | Tendency to high income at less time, being emotional, tendency to independence, risk-taking, hardworking | ||
Previous experience | Having a history of mountaineering, history of sheepherding in mountains, history of brining water from mountainous springs, history of carrying loads and displacing agricultural products and gathering edible plants in the mountains | ||
Considering Kolberi as ethical | Not recognizing Kolberi as a crime, considering Kolberi as lawful, considering Kolberi as useful for both countries | ||
Considering Kolberi as a sports or hobby | Enjoying beautiful routes of the mountain, especially in springs and autumns, avoiding the monotonous environment of the home, doing Kolberi as a hobby or sport, mobility | ||
Economic factors | Financial poverty | Poverty, financial crunch, debts, low support from social organizations | |
Unemployment | Lack of jobs, widespread family unemployment, widespread unemployment in the region, lack of farmlands and fertile lands, lack of industrial workshops in the region, lack of investment for launching a job | ||
Predisposing conditions | Social and cultural factors | Social learning | Learning Kolberi from friends, familiarity with Kolberi in the community, learning Kolberi from the family |
Social interactions and bonds | Having large-scale social relations with the country of Iraq, familial commuting with Iraqi Kurds, marriage relations with Iraqi Kurds, linguistic and cultural similarities, and social relations with Iranian and Iraqi Kurds | ||
Familial factors | Lack of supporter | No guardians, no husbands, being a widow, divorced, having a crippled husband | |
Familial compulsion | High population in the family, having a retarded child in the family | ||
Intervening conditions | Advantages and characteristics of Kolberi | Appropriate income | Immediate wages in cash for Kolberi, higher income of Kolberi compared to other occupations in the region |
Working independence | Setting time for Kolberi by the individual, determining the number of times of Kolberi by the individual | ||
Being addictive | Being accustomed to Kolberi, dependence on Kolberi, the tendency to continue Kolberi | ||
Receive support during Kolberi | Men’s assistance of female Kolber, being ignored by officials, officials’ milder treatment of the women, more attention and support by the load owner to women, attention and support of the buyers to purchasing loads from women than from men | ||
Strategies | Strengthening compatibility with Kolberi | Taking a male identity | Taking male gestures, wearing male clothes, talking like men, smoking |
Concealment | Separation from the family for hiding the Kolberi work, hiding Kolberi from the family, attempts to hide Kolberi from relatives, masking one’s face when doing Kolberi, use of intermediaries for taking delivery of loads | ||
Formation of female groups | Accompanying female counterparts in Iraq, trading with women in Iran and Iraq, | ||
More communication with God | Praying with God, trust in God, almsgiving in the path of God | ||
Consequences | Individual problems | Physical harms | Backache, headache, knee ache, neck ache, shoulder dislocation, amputation |
Mental issues | Anxiety, sever stress, humiliation, loss of self-confidence, Permanent fear and distress of having the loads confiscated by the officials, fear of losing face, fear of having one’s job revealed to the family and others, fear of receiving harm from the animals | ||
Loss of life security | Risk of falling from the cliffs, being caught by typhoons and avalanches, risk of being killed or wounded by the officials, freezing, crashing when moving the loads | ||
Addiction | Turning to drugs for gaining more energy, addiction to energetic drugs, addiction to drugs, addiction to smoking | ||
Forgetting the female roles | Loss of cooking tastes, regarding less importance for the house cleanliness, regard of less importance for the personal appearance, learning male habits | ||
Disrupted daily life routines | Disrupted hours and quality of sleeping, loss of food quality, sleeplessness, insomnia, nightmares, fatigue, high burnout | ||
Social problem | Compulsory isolation | Loss of familial ceremonies, loss of parties, diminishing relations with friends | |
Social rejection | Being rebuked by the family, being rebuked by the friends and relatives, being ignored by the family | ||
Stigmatization | Being stigmatized for having affairs with men, being stigmatized for accompanying male drivers, and for accompanying with the load owner | ||
Positive Consequences | Financial independence | Acquiring personal income, relative financial affordability, spending of life by insignificant income from Kolberi | |
Strengthening scope of social relations | Communication with different people in Iran and Iraq, familiarity with other women, continued communication with Kolbers following doing Kolberi, use of other female Kolbers | ||
Strengthening identity and social status | Gaining social prestige, self-sufficiency, increasing self-efficacy, increasing self-confidence, higher managerial abilities |