Saints, Scholars and Schizophrenics
Saints, Scholars, and Schizophrenics: Mental Illness in Rural Ireland.
Nancy Scheper-Hughes
28 November 2011
Anthropology 1103- 001
Scheper-Hughes, Nancy
1979 Saints, Scholars and Schizophrenics: University of California Press
“It is generally accepted that schizophrenia is a condition in which the person alters his representation of reality in order to escape or withdraw from seemingly unresolvable conflicts and from social interactions that are painful.”(Nancy quotes Hill, Lewis B 1955) as important defining quote of what is incorporated in characteristics of schizophrenia. In the mid 1970’s, in rural Ireland, cases of mental illness and schizophrenia was abnormally high; Nancy Scheper in her ethnography uncovers possible reasoning behind this with her personal experience in Ballybran, a village on the west coast of Ireland which consisted of a small population of farmers, fishermen and shepherds. In this community we find a vast amount melancholy among the people, where overly conservative Roman Catholic ideals were held in high respects, and past economic down fall still haunted the community. During this time there was a transition of farming from being the normal contingency for the next generations into a contrast of where emigrating and scholar work was the path chosen by the majority of youth. Nancy Scheper-Hughes, a PhD in Anthropology, specializing in medical and socioculture, is presently a highly renowned professor at Berkley University in California, and her family of five including her husband and three children relocated to Ireland from the States. She wrote a critical ethnography of the people of western Ireland during the 1970’s and the relevance of the social environment that possibly contributed to the development schizophrenia, as well as other mental illness. When looking at what is considered madness in rural Ireland, its necessary to be look in the perspective of the culture, and neglect own personal opinions molded by own social
Nancy Scheper-Hughes
28 November 2011
Anthropology 1103- 001
Scheper-Hughes, Nancy
1979 Saints, Scholars and Schizophrenics: University of California Press
“It is generally accepted that schizophrenia is a condition in which the person alters his representation of reality in order to escape or withdraw from seemingly unresolvable conflicts and from social interactions that are painful.”(Nancy quotes Hill, Lewis B 1955) as important defining quote of what is incorporated in characteristics of schizophrenia. In the mid 1970’s, in rural Ireland, cases of mental illness and schizophrenia was abnormally high; Nancy Scheper in her ethnography uncovers possible reasoning behind this with her personal experience in Ballybran, a village on the west coast of Ireland which consisted of a small population of farmers, fishermen and shepherds. In this community we find a vast amount melancholy among the people, where overly conservative Roman Catholic ideals were held in high respects, and past economic down fall still haunted the community. During this time there was a transition of farming from being the normal contingency for the next generations into a contrast of where emigrating and scholar work was the path chosen by the majority of youth. Nancy Scheper-Hughes, a PhD in Anthropology, specializing in medical and socioculture, is presently a highly renowned professor at Berkley University in California, and her family of five including her husband and three children relocated to Ireland from the States. She wrote a critical ethnography of the people of western Ireland during the 1970’s and the relevance of the social environment that possibly contributed to the development schizophrenia, as well as other mental illness. When looking at what is considered madness in rural Ireland, its necessary to be look in the perspective of the culture, and neglect own personal opinions molded by own social
References: Scheper-Hughes, Nancy 1979 Saints, Scholars and Schizophrenics: University of California Press Hill, Lewis B. 1973: Psychotherapeutic Intervention in Schizophrenia. Chicago: University of Chicago Gina Zavota Shifting Professional Identities: Reflections on a Faculty Learning Community Experience, Learning Communities Journal, (2002)