NAVIGATING AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE: AN INTERPRETATIVE PHENOMENOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL RESILIENCE AND COPING AMONG UNIVERSITY STUDENTS IN KASHMIR AMID ACADEMIC AND CAREER PRECARITY

Abstract

University students in Kashmir today pursue their education in a context shaped less by any single dramatic event than by an ongoing, low-grade uncertainty about what a degree will actually lead to: a highly competitive landscape of limited government and private-sector positions, intense competition for postgraduate seats and professional entrance examinations and a job market in which credentials no longer straightforwardly translate into stable employment. While quantitative research has examined academic stress and general well-being among South Asian student populations and a substantial international literature links job insecurity and unemployment to psychological strain, few studies have explored, in students' own words, how young people navigate and psychologically manage this everyday climate of academic and career precarity. This study used Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to explore the lived experience of resilience and coping among university students in Kashmir. A total of ten in-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with undergraduate and postgraduate students from institutions in Srinagar and surrounding districts with individual interviews ranging from 40 to 65 minutes approximately. Data were analyzed following Smith et al.'s (2009) IPA procedure, moving from case-by-case idiographic coding to the construction of shared superordinate themes. Four superordinate themes, each comprising three subthemes, were constructed: (1) the weight of an uncertain future (2) the body's quiet ledger (3) anchors of belonging and (4) the fragile labour of normalcy and aspiration. Findings suggest that resilience was experienced less as a fixed trait than as an ongoing, relationally embedded practice of adapting plans, drawing on family and peer support and holding hope and doubt simultaneously while working toward an uncertain occupational horizon. The discussion situates these findings within resilience theory and the vocational psychology literature on job insecurity and offers implications for university career counselling and advising services. Limitations and directions for future research are discussed.