Purpose: Today, underdevelopment is affected by various causes, among which cultural values and social norms can play as an obstacle in regional development. The current research was conducted with the aim of investigating the causes, contexts and intervening factors of social-cultural barriers of underdevelopment with an emphasis on the target community of the relief committee in the east of Hormozgan province.
Materials and Methods: The method of the present research was qualitative and was carried out with the technique of qualitative content analysis. The participants of the qualitative part were all managers and executive elites of supporting institutions, including the Imam Khomeini Relief Committee (RA) and the Welfare Organization, and scientific experts (including university professors and researchers) as well as local influential people in the east of Hormozgan province, which was conducted through snowball sampling after 17 interviews. The researcher reached data saturation. The data collection tool was a semi-structured interview. The method of data analysis was open, central and selective triple coding.
Findings: The results showed; Factors such as the institutionalization of traditional and ethnic-oriented culture, unsupervised and unmet need assessment credits, neglect of land use as some of the causes; Predominance of traditional-religious culture resistant to change, class and hierarchical structure, lack of self-reliance culture as some areas and continuation of cultural poverty, traditionalism and bigotry and lack of localism and specialization as some of the intervening conditions as socio-cultural obstacles of underdevelopment of the region were investigated.
Conclusion: Based on the results obtained, it should be said that in the studied area, despite the destruction of the Khan class, the decline of the chief class after the victory of the Islamic Revolution and the consequent gradual weakening of the caste system, this system and its traditional and superstitious values are inherent in the minds of the committee's clients. There is relief and shelter.