Sobriety and its Cultural Politics

An Ethnographer's Perspective on "Culturally Appropriate" Addiction Services in Native North America

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2277451
AutoresE Prussing (0000-0002-5678-2297, University of Iowa, autor correspondente)
Ano2008
Volume36
Fascículo3
Páginas354-375
Data de publicação2008-09-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoEthos (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0091-2131 • E-ISSN: 1548-1352
EditoraWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1548-1352.2008.00019.x
OpenAlexW1985864758
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas18
Referências citadas33

The growing international trend toward greater community control of mental health programs in indigenous communities illuminates ongoing discursive and material pressures that shape the development of locally responsive and culturally relevant health services. In this article, I apply insights derived from practice theory and critical psychological anthropology to the ethnographic example of a substance abuse program on a Northern Plains reservation. This analysis suggests that by attending to how addiction and its psychotherapeutic transformation are represented in various community and institutional discourses impacting local services, ethnographers can accomplish two vital tasks: (1) documenting social, cultural, and psychological diversity within contemporary Native American communities, and (2) illuminating forces that undermine recognition of this diversity by federally funded mental health services. These forces include the often subtle but persistent power inequalities in relationships between local communities and federal health agencies. [mental health, substance abuse, Native North America

Addiction · Criminology · Cultural diversity · Diversity (politics) · Ethnography · Historical trauma · Indigenous · Mental health · Political science · Politics · Psychiatry · Psychotherapist · Sociology · Substance abuse · Anthropology · Community Health and Development · Ecology · Indigenous Health, Education, and Rights · Indigenous Studies and Ecology · Law · Psychology