Cultural Contours of Depression: A Socio-political and Ethnographic Analysis

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-319-1_53How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Cultural impacts on mental health; Ethnographic study of depression; Medical anthropology; stigma and mental illness; Cross-cultural psychiatry; Mental health in East Asia

Abstract

The essay unpacks the sociopolitical and cultural underpinnings of depression in China, revealing how cultural, historical, and social contexts shape understandings and experiences of mental health. Based on ethnographic methodologies and theoretical frameworks from medical anthropology, this essay will use Arthur Kleinman's concepts of the “local moral world” and illness narratives in attending to culturally particular manifestations of depression within Chinese society. It manifests how the cultural values of Confucian emphasis on social harmony and family reputation influence the perception and expression of depression, somatic manifestations to create an avoidance at all costs. Consequently, such ways are reasoned to likely result in underreporting and under-treating depression if one considers the belief that physical symptoms are more socially acceptable than emotional expressions. Drawing on the work of Junko Kitanaka, this comparison with the Japanese context further puts in perspective how such patterns of the medicalization of depression and its treatment at work are also constructed by work culture and broader expectations set within East Asia. The findings underline a culturally sensitive approach to global mental health practice, aiming at a health system rooted in knowledge about local cultural and social dynamics.

Copyright

© 2024 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Xinyu Fan
PY  - 2024
DA  - 2024/12/14
TI  - Cultural Contours of Depression: A Socio-political and Ethnographic Analysis
BT  - Proceedings of the 2024 6th International Conference on Literature, Art and Human Development (ICLAHD 2024)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 464
EP  - 470
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-319-1_53
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-319-1_53
ID  - Fan2024
ER  -