Orr_food_hunger_and_healing.pdf (376.96 kB)
"Now he walks and walks, as if he didn't have a home where he could eat": food, healing, and hunger in Quechua narratives of madness
In the Quechua-speaking peasant communities of southern Peru, mental disorder is understood less as individualized pathology and more as a disturbance in family and social relationships. For many Andeans, food and feeding are ontologically fundamental to such relationships. This paper uses data from interviews and participant observation in a rural province of Cuzco to explore the significance of food and hunger in local discussions of madness. Carers’ narratives, explanatory models, and theories of healing all draw heavily from idioms of food sharing and consumption in making sense of affliction, and these concepts structure understandings of madness that differ significantly from those assumed by formal mental health services. Greater awareness of the salience of these themes could strengthen the input of psychiatric and psychological care with this population and enhance knowledge of the alternative treatments that they use. Moreover, this case provides lessons for the global mental health movement on the importance of openness to the ways in which indigenous cultures may construct health, madness, and sociality. Such local meanings should be considered by mental health workers delivering services in order to provide care that can adjust to the alternative ontologies of sufferers and carers.
Funding
ESRC
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Publication status
- Published
File Version
- Accepted version
Journal
Culture, Medicine and PsychiatryISSN
0165-005XPublisher
KluwerExternal DOI
Issue
4Volume
37Page range
694-710Department affiliated with
- Social Work and Social Care Publications
Full text available
- Yes
Peer reviewed?
- Yes
Legacy Posted Date
2014-06-27First Open Access (FOA) Date
2014-08-18First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date
2014-08-18Usage metrics
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