Doctoral Dissertation Research: Trauma and Insecurity: Understanding Sources of Stress, Resilience, and Mental Health

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The researcher, Bronwyn Nicole Kaiser, under the supervision of Dr. Craig Hadley will explore how stress is manifested and negotiated under situations of extraordinary duress. A growing group of anthropologists and others have theorized that everyday stressors (poverty, social relationships, and other cultural obligations) have more important impacts on mental health than previously thought. This perspective contrasts with theorizing among other disciplines, which regard trauma and disasters as central forces driving distress. This project will test these contrasting theories in Haiti, where people have long suffered from many daily hardships because of poverty, but have also experienced trauma because of the recent earthquake. Using a mixed method ethnographic and biocultural approach, the researcher will investigate the links between stressors, mental health outcomes, and physiological stress through an ethnographic exploration of distress, coping, and resilience. The study contributes to the debates in anthropology and the social sciences more broadly about stress and coping, mental health and resilience. The project has strong potential to inform work in global mental health broadly by rigorously testing links between sociocultural and physiological phenomena to understand the salient manifestations of suffering and distress. The project thus provides a particularly timely contribution to debates both within anthropology and of general scholarly and public interest.The project will contribute to the training of a female doctoral student, and through the dissemination of findings to healthcare providers and policymakers, will help to inform health care provision, particularly among historically disadvantaged groups.