Introducing Levino Liegise and her PhD journey that explores the vibrant intersection of personal experience and academic research to navigate the complexities of identity and societal roles.
Here at OCMS, we have the privilege of journeying alongside our students as they embark on their academic and personal explorations to make a meaningful impact in their communities and beyond. Here we tell Dr. Levino Liegise’s PhD journey, which stands as a testament to the power of integrating personal experience with scholarly research to address complex societal challenges.
Hailing from Nagaland, a region rich in culture yet grappling with the challenges of modernity, Levino chose to delve into the lives of professional women navigating the intricate balance of multiple roles and expectations.
As a working mother and pastor’s wife herself, this OCMS graduate was intimately familiar with the stresses and challenges of juggling multiple roles and societal expectations. Through her PhD journey, she was able to give voice to the lived realities of professional women in Nagaland, documenting their experiences in rich detail. Her research aimed to uncover the psychological underpinnings of multiplicity — a phenomenon marked by co-existing cultural systems, layers of expectations, and the internal conflict of managing various societal roles.
The journey was not without its challenges. Levino recounts the difficulty of bridging theory with the vivid stories of her participants, a task that demanded not only intellectual rigor but also a deep empathy and understanding. With the support of OCMS’s dedicated supervisory team, she found the necessary guidance and encouragement to weave these narratives into a rich tapestry that not only presented the data but also breathed life into the theories.
Balancing her academic pursuits with her roles at home and in her community was a monumental task. Yet, through perseverance and a commitment to engage with her research daily, Levino navigated these choppy waters. This balance was further complicated by the need to write for a diverse audience, from Western readers unfamiliar with Naga society to women who might see their own experiences reflected in her research.
Today, as the Head of Research and Development at Alder College, Kohima, and an active participant in her church and society, Levino applies the insights gained from her PhD journey in profound ways. Her work, underpinned by a nuanced understanding of multiplicity and vocation, enables her to engage with societal and ecclesiastical issues from a position of informed critical distance and empathy.
Levino’s thesis, “Multiplicity in Contemporary Naga Society: A Study on Professional Women in Multiple Lifeworlds,” offers a groundbreaking perspective on navigating the complexities of identity and responsibility in a changing world. By framing multiplicity within the context of vocation and calling, her research provides a lens through which to view the challenges and opportunities of contemporary life in Nagaland and beyond.
At OCMS, we are proud to have been a part of Levino’s journey and are inspired by her commitment to using her research to serve her community. Her story is a vivid illustration of how scholarly work, rooted in personal experience can offer valuable insights into important social issues.
Thesis Abstract
Levino Liegise, from Nagaland awarded PhD degree in 2023 on her thesis: “Multiplicity in Contemporary Naga Society: A Study on Professional Women in Multiple Lifeworlds,” This research offers a groundbreaking perspective on navigating the complexities of identity and responsibility in a changing world. By framing multiplicity within the context of vocation and calling, her research provides a lens through which to view the challenges and opportunities of contemporary life in Nagaland and beyond.. She examines the notion of ‘multiplicity or the multiple self’. She argues that there is a new way to understand and engage with the multiple self through the notion of vocation or calling. She does so through taking her research participants as examples for understanding multiplicity in contemporary Nagaland.
Their life-stories show the manifestation of multiplicity, on the one hand, and offer ways to cope with it, on the other. In so doing, she shows that for professional women in Nagaland today, multiplicity manifests as co-existing cultural systems, layers of limitations, voices in conflict, and possible selves that are either unfulfilled or selves which can manifest in the future. A sense of vocation holds these in creative tension by: endorsing a construal of self that is both modern and traditional at the same time; interpreting limitations caused by both particular experiences and social structures as inevitable and necessary towards fulfilling one’s calling; giving expression to conflicting voices while avoiding making one salient and suppressing the others; and forming a self-schema defined by the Christian narrative of fulfilling God’s calling.
