Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Effects of Immigration on Local Understandings of Mental Health

博士论文研究：移民对当地心理健康理解的影响

• 批准号: 1026819
• 负责人: Janis Jenkins
• 金额: $ 1.9万
• 依托单位: University of California-San Diego
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2010
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2010-08-15 至 2011-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1026819&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Effects; Immigration

Doctoral student, Whitney L. Duncan, with the guidance of her advisor Dr. Janis H. Jenkins, will undertake research on a specific aspect of globalization: the spread of Euroamerican psychiatric and psychological practices and ideologies to new sites around the world, where local understandings of emotion and illness are being impacted in multiple ways. The study will investigate if and how globalizing mental health ideologies are changing local medical systems, conceptions about what it means to be emotionally stable, what therapeutic modalities are appropriate for those who are not stable, and the subjective experience of emotional distress. The research will be carried out in the local context of Oaxaca, Mexico. Over the past two decades, Oaxaca has seen dramatic increases in diagnosed mental illnesses, a spike in the availability of psychiatric and psychological services, and an unprecedented demand for mental healthcare. This multi-sited ethnographic study investigates how and why the growth in mental healthcare has occurred and what impact it is having on Oaxacans' conceptions and experiences of emotional distress. Ethnographic research will be carried out in the capital city of Oaxaca de Juárez as well as in the indigenous Mixteca region, where emigration is ubiquitous. The investigator will conduct long-term participant observation, structured, semi-structured, and life history interviews, and sociolinguistic analysis of casual interactions. The research is important because it will provide an ethnographic account of the cultural context of emotion, illness, and healing in a particular locale, and will advance theoretical understanding of how those aspects of social life and subjectivity change under competing local and global discourses. Conducting the proposed study in Oaxaca at this moment of cultural change and social flux will illuminate the effects globalizing mental health practices and discourses are having at the local level. The results of the research also will help practitioners working with Mexican migrant communities in the United States. Funding the research supports the education of a graduate student.

博士生Whitney L. Duncan在她的导师Janis H. Jenkins博士的指导下，将对全球化的一个特定方面进行研究：欧美精神病学和心理学实践和意识形态在世界各地的新地点的传播，在那里当地人对情感和疾病的理解正以多种方式受到影响。这项研究将调查全球化的心理健康意识形态是否以及如何改变当地的医疗系统、情绪稳定意味着什么、对那些不稳定的人来说什么治疗方式是合适的、以及情绪困扰的主观体验。该研究将在墨西哥瓦哈卡州的当地环境中进行。在过去的二十年里，瓦哈卡州的精神疾病诊断急剧增加，精神病学和心理服务的可用性激增，对精神保健的需求空前高涨。这项多地点人种学研究调查了精神卫生保健的增长是如何以及为什么发生的，以及它对瓦哈卡人对情绪困扰的概念和经历产生了什么影响。人种学研究将在首都瓦哈卡Juárez以及移民普遍存在的土著米斯特卡地区进行。研究者将进行长期的参与者观察，结构化的，半结构化的，生活史访谈，以及随意互动的社会语言学分析。这项研究很重要，因为它将为特定地区的情感、疾病和治疗的文化背景提供一个民族志的描述，并将推进对社会生活和主体性在竞争的地方和全球话语下如何变化的理论理解。在这个文化变革和社会动荡的时刻在瓦哈卡进行拟议的研究，将阐明全球化的心理健康做法和话语在地方一级产生的影响。这项研究的结果也将有助于在美国的墨西哥移民社区工作的从业者。研究经费支持研究生的教育。