Historicizing the Emergence of Global Mental Health in Nepal (1950-2019)

This article traces a genealogy of mental health governance in Nepal as it was constituted in and through an assemblage of historical events, local politics, personal relationships and trends in the field of global health development. The relation between health development and local politics in Nepal is explored across four periods in the history of global health: 1) the early health development programs of disease eradication after the end of the Rana oligarchy (1951-1970); 2) the turn to primary health care during the Panchayat (1970-1990); 3) the rise of NGOs and the People’s War (1990-2010); and 4) the return to health systems development in the post-conflict/post-earthquake period (2010-present). By drawing on a combination of archival research and a cross-disciplinary review of the literature on global mental health, this article tracks the changing projects of mental health development programs in Nepal over the past century. In doing so, it becomes possible to observe the shifting trends in the problematization of mental health and the management of psychic life in Nepal from 1950 to the emergence of global mental health

Historicizing the Emergence of Global Mental Health in Nepal (1950-2019)

This article traces a genealogy of mental health governance in Nepal as it was constituted in and through an assemblage of historical events, local politics, personal relationships and trends in the field of global health development. The relation between health development and local politics in Nepal is explored across four periods in the history of global health: 1) the early health development programs of disease eradication after the end of the Rana oligarchy (1951-1970); 2) the turn to primary health care during the Panchayat (1970-1990); 3) the rise of NGOs and the People’s War (1990-2010); and 4) the return to health systems development in the post-conflict/post-earthquake period (2010-present). By drawing on a combination of archival research and a cross-disciplinary review of the literature on global mental health, this article tracks the changing projects of mental health development programs in Nepal over the past century. In doing so, it becomes possible to observe the shifting trends in the problematization of mental health and the management of psychic life in Nepal from 1950 to the emergence of global mental health

Excavating the Imagination: Dreaming and reverie among Yolmo-Nepali Buddhists in New York City

What is the anthropology of imagination and how can we understand imaginative experience? Anthropology has long focused on the readily observable, the visible, and the present, yet the experience of everyday life is also shaped by private thoughts, imaginings, dreams and daydreams. This paper is an experiment in approaching such affective faculties. Drawing on fieldwork conducted with Yolmo-Nepali colleagues in Queens, New York between 2009-2011, I explore some of the imaginative experiences of migrants as they relate to and illuminate complex existential circumstances brought about by social, economic, and political forces. By attending to experiences such as dreaming, daydreaming, and the relationship between the actual and the virtual, I aim to gain a better understanding of the role of imagining in the everyday lives of Yolmo migrants. In doing so I hope to identify the limits, as well as potential openings that an attention towards the imagination entails in the context of anthropological research

The Work of Disaster: Events of Affliction, Care, and Intervention in Nepal

This dissertation offers an ethnographic account of mental health governance, psychosocial interventions, and forms of shared affliction in Nepal before and after the 2015 earthquakes. By thinking with theories of event and crisis through the lens of critical phenomenology, I ask the following questions: How can ethnography approach emergent phenomena? How does an affliction become knowable through a particular concept and made into an object of intervention? How is evidence for therapeutic efficacy made visible in the midst of a psychosocial encounter? What are the local/global historical, political, and socioeconomic forces that have brought about the emergence of mental health governance in Nepal? Based on 24 months of field research, I conducted participant observation, interviews, focus groups, household surveys, and followed psychosocial counselors in the field to respond to these questions. In the first part of the dissertation I outline the history of mental health governance in Nepal in relation to the emergence of the Global Mental Health movement. In the second part I examine cases of adolescent “mass hysteria” as they were conceptualized as “conversion disorder,” “hysteria,” "chhopne," and "bhut/pret," "pissach laagne." In the third and final part I track the humanitarian mental health response in the aftermath of the disaster and its ramifications. In order to address the ethical question of the possibilities and impossibilities of field research under situations of emergency, I discuss how new forms of ethnographic engagement were needed to respond to the unfolding disaster. As a conclusion, I conceptualize what I call the "work of disaster" as a way to frame what was generated through the event of disaster and what was destroyed, what was accomplished through various narratives of crisis and what was foreclosed, the processes by which affliction was made visible or rendered invisible, and the historical contexts that created the possibility for these formations

The Work of Disaster: Events of Affliction, Care, and Intervention in Nepal

This dissertation offers an ethnographic account of mental health governance, psychosocial interventions, and forms of shared affliction in Nepal before and after the 2015 earthquakes. By thinking with theories of event and crisis through the lens of critical phenomenology, I ask the following questions: How can ethnography approach emergent phenomena? How does an affliction become knowable through a particular concept and made into an object of intervention? How is evidence for therapeutic efficacy made visible in the midst of a psychosocial encounter? What are the local/global historical, political, and socioeconomic forces that have brought about the emergence of mental health governance in Nepal? Based on 24 months of field research, I conducted participant observation, interviews, focus groups, household surveys, and followed psychosocial counselors in the field to respond to these questions. In the first part of the dissertation I outline the history of mental health governance in Nepal in relation to the emergence of the Global Mental Health movement. In the second part I examine cases of adolescent “mass hysteria” as they were conceptualized as “conversion disorder,” “hysteria,” "chhopne," and "bhut/pret," "pissach laagne." In the third and final part I track the humanitarian mental health response in the aftermath of the disaster and its ramifications. In order to address the ethical question of the possibilities and impossibilities of field research under situations of emergency, I discuss how new forms of ethnographic engagement were needed to respond to the unfolding disaster. As a conclusion, I conceptualize what I call the "work of disaster" as a way to frame what was generated through the event of disaster and what was destroyed, what was accomplished through various narratives of crisis and what was foreclosed, the processes by which affliction was made visible or rendered invisible, and the historical contexts that created the possibility for these formations

Excavating the imagination: Dreaming and reverie among Yolmo-Nepali Buddhists in New York City

What is the anthropology of imagination and how can we understand imaginative experience? Anthropology has long focused on the readily observable, the visible, and the present, yet the experience of everyday life is also shaped by private thoughts, imaginings, dreams and daydreams. This paper is an experiment in approaching such affective faculties. Drawing on fieldwork conducted with Yolmo-Nepali colleagues in Queens, New York between 2009-2011, I explore some of the imaginative experiences of migrants as they relate to and illuminate complex existential circumstances brought about by social, economic, and political forces. By attending to experiences such as dreaming, daydreaming, and the relationship between the actual and the virtual, I aim to gain a better understanding of the role of imagining in the everyday lives of Yolmo migrants. In doing so I hope to identify the limits, as well as potential openings that an attention towards the imagination entails in the context of anthropological research

¿De donde viene su comida? Participación en la feria del agricultor. [PowerPoint]

Abstract A study on the participation at the farmer\u27s market in Santa Elena. Abstract Spanish Un estudio en la participación en la feria del agricultor en Santa Elena.https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/community_health/1072/thumbnail.jp

¿De donde viene su comida? Participación en la feria del agricultor. [PowerPoint]

Abstract A study on the participation at the farmer\u27s market in Santa Elena. Abstract Spanish Un estudio en la participación en la feria del agricultor en Santa Elena.https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/community_health/1072/thumbnail.jp

Where do you get your produce? Participation in the farmer’s market in Santa Elena

Abstract A study on the participation at the farmer\u27s market in Santa Elena. Abstract Spanish Un estudio sobre la participación del agricultor en el mercado de Santa Elena.https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/community_health/1071/thumbnail.jp

Where do you get your produce? Participation in the farmer’s market in Santa Elena

Abstract A study on the participation at the farmer\u27s market in Santa Elena. Abstract Spanish Un estudio sobre la participación del agricultor en el mercado de Santa Elena.https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/community_health/1071/thumbnail.jp