The 'Cultures' of Global Mental Health

Bibliographic Data

ID2353124
AuthorsLeandro David Wenceslau (0000-0001-8622-9137, Universidade Federal de Viçosa, corresponding author), F Ortega (0000-0002-5039-9449, ICREA (Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies)/Medical Anthropology Research Center, Universitat Rovira i Virgili)
Year2022
Volume39
Issue3
Pages99-119
Publication date2022-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueTheory Culture & Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0263-2764 • E-ISSN: 1460-3616
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/02632764211039282
OpenAlexW3203377557
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited68

Global Mental Health is a field of research and practice that addresses the expansion of universal and equitable mental health care worldwide. This article explores the ways the concept of culture is employed in Global Mental Health literature. Global Mental Health advocates and critics assume an ontological separation between 'nature' and 'culture' to typify mental illness, linking it predominantly to one or the other of these two categories. Advocates of Global Mental Health view mental disorders as a nature-culture hybrid, while critics see them as typically cultural phenomena. The cultural critique of Global Mental Health can be strengthened by a sociological approach to both the role of critique and the uses of the concept of culture within social sciences. As an alternative to the ontologization of culture, we propose a different theoretical approach to the social issues involved in the expansion of international public health care in mental health: Arthur Kleinman's and Didier Fassin's moral anthropological approaches

Environmental ethics · Field (mathematics · Global mental health · Mental health · Mental health care · Mental health law · Middle Eastern Mental Health Issues & Syndromes · Psychiatry · Public health · Social science · Sociology · Employment and Welfare Studies · Medicine · Mental Health Treatment and Access · Migration, Health and Trauma · Nursing · Psychology