Julia Vorhölter
Biographic Data
| ID | 94422 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Julia Vorhölter |
| GIVEN NAMES | Julia |
| FAMILY NAME | Vorhölter |
| SIGNATURE | VORHÖLTER J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1343-9920 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 62 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 17 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
The Rebel Body: The Subversive Meanings of Illness
Introductory Note/Abstract Nancy Scheper-Hughes’s and Margaret Lock’s (1987) article on the “the mindful body,” in which they introduce their framework of three interconnected bodies (individual, social, and the body politic), has shaped debates in medical anthropology over the last three decades and, as Yates-Doerr (2017: 142) puts it, represented “ a zeitgeist for the field ” (italics in original). Scheper-Hughes’s related, but more politicized…
Liberation Medicine: Past, Present, and Future
In her book Death Without Weeping (1992), Nancy Scheper-Hughes coined the term "liberation medicine," which aims to place the individual experience of illness in a larger social context and use it as a starting point for critical thinking and resistance. Illness, so the basic premise of liberation medicine, is a form of resistance that can be turned into an effective political strategy. Accordingly, medicine is understood to have the potential fo…
(Mis)Perceiving Apnea and Insomnia in Germany: A Tale of Two Disorders
In Germany, both apnea and insomnia are highly prevalent sleep disorders. But while there is an extensive and growing infrastructure to deal with apnea, there is very little support for insomnia patients. I argue that this is due to various interrelated factors: the role of evidence and experience in diagnosis, the availability of treatment, and-importantly-how evidence, experience, and treatment can (or cannot) be materialized in the medical eco…
Ethical Endeavours: A Review of European Social Anthropology 2022
This article provides an overview of the articles published in the main English-speaking European Anthropology journals in 2022. One of the key themes running through these publications is ethics and people's desires and struggles to 'do good' - despite, or perhaps because of, the protracted crises the world is currently facing. Attempting to move beyond simple critique, many of the authors empathetically engage with their interlocutors' 'ethical…
Psychotherapy as care in Uganda: Envisioning a “more-than-critique anthropology”
Over the past two decades, care has become a key concept in psychological anthropology, and anthropology more broadly. Although the term generally evokes positive associations, anthropological studies mostly focus on the darker or ambivalent aspects of care such as paternalism, exploitation, or instrumentalism. This article rethinks anthropological critiques of care. Drawing on examples from my research on emerging forms of psychotherapy in Ugand…
Reply to Sjaak van der Geest
In this short reply, I respond to some of Sjaak van der Geest’s comments on my article
Anthropology Anonymous? Pseudonyms and Confidentiality as Challenges for Ethnography in the Twenty-first Century
This article reflects on the delicate issue of confidentiality and anonymity in contemporary anthropological research. It focuses on the challenges of assigning pseudonyms and disguising the identity of interlocutors and participants, especially in the contemporary context of the widespread use of social media and the internet. Drawing on the moral dilemmas, struggles, and failures that I experienced in relation to these issues in my own research…
A pioneer of psy: The first Ugandan psychiatric nurse and her (different) tale of psychiatry in Uganda
In Africa, the emergence of a "modern" mental health regime centered on psychiatry is often portrayed as a unidirectional intervention by "the West." Analyses ranging from medical histories of colonial psychiatry to more recent studies of Global Mental Health focus mostly on the role of external actors and the ways their actions impact(ed) on local populations. Uncritical studies simply reduce the complexity of African therapeutic landscapes to a…
Family Trouble: Changing (Dis)Orders and Psychotherapeutic Interventions in Uganda
The recent popularization of psychotherapy in Uganda, while reflecting a global trend, is also a response to the far-reaching political, economic, and social transformations the country has undergone since 1986. These have caused new forms of stress and uncertainty and triggered desires for new forms of sense-making and care, particularly among middle-class Ugandans who are struggling with lifestyle-related suffering and family conflicts. Psychot…
Struggling to Be a "Happy Self"? Psychotherapy and the Medicalization of Unhappiness in Uganda
This article is an ethnographic study of emergent discourses, practices, and institutions focused on mental health and psychotherapy in Uganda. It compares the recent rise of a psy-dispositif in two very different settings: postwar northern Uganda, which has become a hub for international trauma interventions, and Kampala, the capital, where a small group of Ugandan psychotherapists has established a number of private practices, which mainly cate…
Class-Based Chronicities of Suffering and Seeking Help: Comparing Addiction Treatment Programs in Uganda
Neoliberal Moral Economy – Capitalism, socio-cultural change and fraud in Uganda
This book deals with an important contemporary question: what explains the rise of economic fraud in many countries across the globe? Using Uganda – allegedly the first and most advanced market soc
Homosexuality, pornography, and other 'modern threats' - The deployment of sexuality in recent laws and public discourses in Uganda
In recent years, the Ugandan government has proposed a number of laws that attempt to control the sexual conduct of the Ugandan population. The much-debated Anti-Homosexuality Bill, signed by Museveni in February 2014 but overturned on constitutional grounds in August 2014, is only the most well-known. Further examples include legal measures related to HIV/AIDS, defilement, prostitution, and pornography. This article analyzes why and in which con…
Years of Independence in Africa: Continuities, ruptures, perspectives (50 Jahre Unabhangigkeit in Africa: Kontinuitaten, Bruche, Perspektiven)
Roughly five decades ago, the majority of francophone and anglophone African states gained political independence from their former colonial administrators. This volume, edited by German social anthropologists Bierschenk and Spies, aims to take stock of this period in African history from a holistic, differentiated, and analytical perspective. The 23 contributions by respected (primarily German) Africanist scholars from anthropology and various o…
Youth at the crossroads: Discourses on socio-cultural change in post-war Northern Uganda
Based on eleven months of field work (2009-2011), this book analyzes the situation of youth in urban Gulu, Northern Uganda, in the aftermath of the war between the Lord's Resistance Army and the Ugandan Government (1986-2006). Specifically, it focuses on the generation that was born and grew up during the 20-year war: How do members of this generation perceive and evaluate socio-cultural changes which occurred in Acholi society throughout the war…
Negotiating social change: Ugandan discourses on Westernisation and neo-colonialism as forms of social critique
A common claim, in public discourses and in post-colonial theory, is that colonialism, and more recently the aid industry and the media, have created global hegemonic norms, which have been enforced on non-Western societies. While this may be true in some respects, this article takes a different stance on the debate. It scrutinises perceptions of Western-influenced social change in Uganda, and differentiates between discourses on Westernisation a…
Studying development organizations - towards a culture of participation
PurposeThis article aims to provide new insights to current debates within the anthropology of (participatory) development by presenting a theoretically-informed, ethnographic case study of a development organization in Pretoria, South Africa.Design/methodology/approachA theoretical framework is proposed which links recent debates on organizational culture and participatory development. It is based on a thorough review of the literature in these …
Youth at the crossroads: Discourses on socio-cultural change in post-war Northern Uganda
Based on eleven months of field work (2009-2011), this book analyzes the situation of youth in urban Gulu, Northern Uganda, in the aftermath of the war between the Lord's Resistance Army and the Ugandan Government (1986-2006). Specifically, it focuses on the generation that was born and grew up during the 20-year war: How do members of this generation perceive and evaluate socio-cultural changes which occurred in Acholi society throughout the war…
Struggling to Be a "Happy Self"? Psychotherapy and the Medicalization of Unhappiness in Uganda
This article is an ethnographic study of emergent discourses, practices, and institutions focused on mental health and psychotherapy in Uganda. It compares the recent rise of a psy-dispositif in two very different settings: postwar northern Uganda, which has become a hub for international trauma interventions, and Kampala, the capital, where a small group of Ugandan psychotherapists has established a number of private practices, which mainly cate…
Homosexuality, pornography, and other 'modern threats' - The deployment of sexuality in recent laws and public discourses in Uganda
In recent years, the Ugandan government has proposed a number of laws that attempt to control the sexual conduct of the Ugandan population. The much-debated Anti-Homosexuality Bill, signed by Museveni in February 2014 but overturned on constitutional grounds in August 2014, is only the most well-known. Further examples include legal measures related to HIV/AIDS, defilement, prostitution, and pornography. This article analyzes why and in which con…
Neoliberal Moral Economy – Capitalism, socio-cultural change and fraud in Uganda
This book deals with an important contemporary question: what explains the rise of economic fraud in many countries across the globe? Using Uganda – allegedly the first and most advanced market soc
Negotiating social change: Ugandan discourses on Westernisation and neo-colonialism as forms of social critique
A common claim, in public discourses and in post-colonial theory, is that colonialism, and more recently the aid industry and the media, have created global hegemonic norms, which have been enforced on non-Western societies. While this may be true in some respects, this article takes a different stance on the debate. It scrutinises perceptions of Western-influenced social change in Uganda, and differentiates between discourses on Westernisation a…
Ethical Endeavours: A Review of European Social Anthropology 2022
This article provides an overview of the articles published in the main English-speaking European Anthropology journals in 2022. One of the key themes running through these publications is ethics and people's desires and struggles to 'do good' - despite, or perhaps because of, the protracted crises the world is currently facing. Attempting to move beyond simple critique, many of the authors empathetically engage with their interlocutors' 'ethical…
Anthropology Anonymous? Pseudonyms and Confidentiality as Challenges for Ethnography in the Twenty-first Century
This article reflects on the delicate issue of confidentiality and anonymity in contemporary anthropological research. It focuses on the challenges of assigning pseudonyms and disguising the identity of interlocutors and participants, especially in the contemporary context of the widespread use of social media and the internet. Drawing on the moral dilemmas, struggles, and failures that I experienced in relation to these issues in my own research…
A pioneer of psy: The first Ugandan psychiatric nurse and her (different) tale of psychiatry in Uganda
In Africa, the emergence of a "modern" mental health regime centered on psychiatry is often portrayed as a unidirectional intervention by "the West." Analyses ranging from medical histories of colonial psychiatry to more recent studies of Global Mental Health focus mostly on the role of external actors and the ways their actions impact(ed) on local populations. Uncritical studies simply reduce the complexity of African therapeutic landscapes to a…
Liberation Medicine: Past, Present, and Future
In her book Death Without Weeping (1992), Nancy Scheper-Hughes coined the term "liberation medicine," which aims to place the individual experience of illness in a larger social context and use it as a starting point for critical thinking and resistance. Illness, so the basic premise of liberation medicine, is a form of resistance that can be turned into an effective political strategy. Accordingly, medicine is understood to have the potential fo…
Family Trouble: Changing (Dis)Orders and Psychotherapeutic Interventions in Uganda
The recent popularization of psychotherapy in Uganda, while reflecting a global trend, is also a response to the far-reaching political, economic, and social transformations the country has undergone since 1986. These have caused new forms of stress and uncertainty and triggered desires for new forms of sense-making and care, particularly among middle-class Ugandans who are struggling with lifestyle-related suffering and family conflicts. Psychot…
(Mis)Perceiving Apnea and Insomnia in Germany: A Tale of Two Disorders
In Germany, both apnea and insomnia are highly prevalent sleep disorders. But while there is an extensive and growing infrastructure to deal with apnea, there is very little support for insomnia patients. I argue that this is due to various interrelated factors: the role of evidence and experience in diagnosis, the availability of treatment, and-importantly-how evidence, experience, and treatment can (or cannot) be materialized in the medical eco…
Studying development organizations - towards a culture of participation
PurposeThis article aims to provide new insights to current debates within the anthropology of (participatory) development by presenting a theoretically-informed, ethnographic case study of a development organization in Pretoria, South Africa.Design/methodology/approachA theoretical framework is proposed which links recent debates on organizational culture and participatory development. It is based on a thorough review of the literature in these …
Negotiating social change: Ugandan discourses on Westernisation and neo-colonialism as forms of social critique
A common claim, in public discourses and in post-colonial theory, is that colonialism, and more recently the aid industry and the media, have created global hegemonic norms, which have been enforced on non-Western societies. While this may be true in some respects, this article takes a different stance on the debate. It scrutinises perceptions of Western-influenced social change in Uganda, and differentiates between discourses on Westernisation a…
Studying development organizations - towards a culture of participation
PurposeThis article aims to provide new insights to current debates within the anthropology of (participatory) development by presenting a theoretically-informed, ethnographic case study of a development organization in Pretoria, South Africa.Design/methodology/approachA theoretical framework is proposed which links recent debates on organizational culture and participatory development. It is based on a thorough review of the literature in these …
Years of Independence in Africa: Continuities, ruptures, perspectives (50 Jahre Unabhangigkeit in Africa: Kontinuitaten, Bruche, Perspektiven)
Roughly five decades ago, the majority of francophone and anglophone African states gained political independence from their former colonial administrators. This volume, edited by German social anthropologists Bierschenk and Spies, aims to take stock of this period in African history from a holistic, differentiated, and analytical perspective. The 23 contributions by respected (primarily German) Africanist scholars from anthropology and various o…
Youth at the crossroads: Discourses on socio-cultural change in post-war Northern Uganda
Based on eleven months of field work (2009-2011), this book analyzes the situation of youth in urban Gulu, Northern Uganda, in the aftermath of the war between the Lord's Resistance Army and the Ugandan Government (1986-2006). Specifically, it focuses on the generation that was born and grew up during the 20-year war: How do members of this generation perceive and evaluate socio-cultural changes which occurred in Acholi society throughout the war…
Class-Based Chronicities of Suffering and Seeking Help: Comparing Addiction Treatment Programs in Uganda
Neoliberal Moral Economy – Capitalism, socio-cultural change and fraud in Uganda
This book deals with an important contemporary question: what explains the rise of economic fraud in many countries across the globe? Using Uganda – allegedly the first and most advanced market soc
Homosexuality, pornography, and other 'modern threats' - The deployment of sexuality in recent laws and public discourses in Uganda
In recent years, the Ugandan government has proposed a number of laws that attempt to control the sexual conduct of the Ugandan population. The much-debated Anti-Homosexuality Bill, signed by Museveni in February 2014 but overturned on constitutional grounds in August 2014, is only the most well-known. Further examples include legal measures related to HIV/AIDS, defilement, prostitution, and pornography. This article analyzes why and in which con…
Struggling to Be a "Happy Self"? Psychotherapy and the Medicalization of Unhappiness in Uganda
This article is an ethnographic study of emergent discourses, practices, and institutions focused on mental health and psychotherapy in Uganda. It compares the recent rise of a psy-dispositif in two very different settings: postwar northern Uganda, which has become a hub for international trauma interventions, and Kampala, the capital, where a small group of Ugandan psychotherapists has established a number of private practices, which mainly cate…
Reply to Sjaak van der Geest
In this short reply, I respond to some of Sjaak van der Geest’s comments on my article
Anthropology Anonymous? Pseudonyms and Confidentiality as Challenges for Ethnography in the Twenty-first Century
This article reflects on the delicate issue of confidentiality and anonymity in contemporary anthropological research. It focuses on the challenges of assigning pseudonyms and disguising the identity of interlocutors and participants, especially in the contemporary context of the widespread use of social media and the internet. Drawing on the moral dilemmas, struggles, and failures that I experienced in relation to these issues in my own research…
A pioneer of psy: The first Ugandan psychiatric nurse and her (different) tale of psychiatry in Uganda
In Africa, the emergence of a "modern" mental health regime centered on psychiatry is often portrayed as a unidirectional intervention by "the West." Analyses ranging from medical histories of colonial psychiatry to more recent studies of Global Mental Health focus mostly on the role of external actors and the ways their actions impact(ed) on local populations. Uncritical studies simply reduce the complexity of African therapeutic landscapes to a…
Family Trouble: Changing (Dis)Orders and Psychotherapeutic Interventions in Uganda
The recent popularization of psychotherapy in Uganda, while reflecting a global trend, is also a response to the far-reaching political, economic, and social transformations the country has undergone since 1986. These have caused new forms of stress and uncertainty and triggered desires for new forms of sense-making and care, particularly among middle-class Ugandans who are struggling with lifestyle-related suffering and family conflicts. Psychot…
Psychotherapy as care in Uganda: Envisioning a “more-than-critique anthropology”
Over the past two decades, care has become a key concept in psychological anthropology, and anthropology more broadly. Although the term generally evokes positive associations, anthropological studies mostly focus on the darker or ambivalent aspects of care such as paternalism, exploitation, or instrumentalism. This article rethinks anthropological critiques of care. Drawing on examples from my research on emerging forms of psychotherapy in Ugand…
Ethical Endeavours: A Review of European Social Anthropology 2022
This article provides an overview of the articles published in the main English-speaking European Anthropology journals in 2022. One of the key themes running through these publications is ethics and people's desires and struggles to 'do good' - despite, or perhaps because of, the protracted crises the world is currently facing. Attempting to move beyond simple critique, many of the authors empathetically engage with their interlocutors' 'ethical…
(Mis)Perceiving Apnea and Insomnia in Germany: A Tale of Two Disorders
In Germany, both apnea and insomnia are highly prevalent sleep disorders. But while there is an extensive and growing infrastructure to deal with apnea, there is very little support for insomnia patients. I argue that this is due to various interrelated factors: the role of evidence and experience in diagnosis, the availability of treatment, and-importantly-how evidence, experience, and treatment can (or cannot) be materialized in the medical eco…
Liberation Medicine: Past, Present, and Future
In her book Death Without Weeping (1992), Nancy Scheper-Hughes coined the term "liberation medicine," which aims to place the individual experience of illness in a larger social context and use it as a starting point for critical thinking and resistance. Illness, so the basic premise of liberation medicine, is a form of resistance that can be turned into an effective political strategy. Accordingly, medicine is understood to have the potential fo…
The Rebel Body: The Subversive Meanings of Illness
Introductory Note/Abstract Nancy Scheper-Hughes’s and Margaret Lock’s (1987) article on the “the mindful body,” in which they introduce their framework of three interconnected bodies (individual, social, and the body politic), has shaped debates in medical anthropology over the last three decades and, as Yates-Doerr (2017: 142) puts it, represented “ a zeitgeist for the field ” (italics in original). Scheper-Hughes’s related, but more politicized…
Political science (11 works) · Sociology (11 works) · Law (10 works) · Psychology (7 works) · Ethnography (6 works) · Gender Studies (6 works) · Law (6 works) · Social science (6 works) · Anthropology (5 works) · Politics (5 works)