Medical Anthropology and Global Health Workshop
(1) Haunted by Aceh: Violence, Memory, and an Anthropological ‘Hauntology’
Speaker: Prof. Byron J. Good
Date: 13th December 2019 (Friday)
Time: 1:30-3pm
Venue: Room 214, Cheng Yu Tung Building, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Abstract:
Recent writing in anthropology, particularly of Southeast Asia, suggests a ‘spectral’ turn within ethnographic theorizing, influenced by Jacque Derrida’s Specters of Marx and wide-ranging writing on ghosts, haunting and spectrality within cultural studies. This talk will provide a personal genealogy of how I have come to use the concept ‘haunting’ for reflections on over 20 years of work in Indonesia. In particular, I reflect on work in post-tsunami, post-conflict Aceh in Indonesia, a setting beset with ghosts of those killed in the tsunami and haunted by memories of violence and trauma experienced by those affected by years of conflict between Indonesian military forces and the Free Aceh Movement. I will argue that “haunting” and “hauntology” have a critical place within anthropology, particularly psychological anthropology and theories of subjectivity, and for anthropologists interested in the complex processes of historical memory related to colonialism and violence. I will suggest that an anthropological hauntology requires that we address the processes through which traumatic dimensions of contested historical experience are simultaneously kept hidden and made visible, and that such accounts must address the complex relations between individual psychological experience and the political. I will raise questions of why outbreaks of ghosts appear when they do and what kinds of social and psychological responses they provoke. And I will conclude with a brief exploration of the possibilities of a ‘hauntological ethics.’
Bio:
Byron Good, Professor of Medical Anthropology, Harvard Medical School, is a medical anthropologist whose research interests focus on cultural psychology and psychopathology, and on the theorization of subjectivity in contemporary societies. His present works focuses on research and mental health services development in Asian societies, particularly Indonesia.
(2) The Great Unlocking: Revolutionizing Mental Health Care in Indonesia and China
Speaker: Prof. Mary-Jo DelVecchio Good
Date: 13th December 2019 (Friday)
Time: 3:30-5:00 pm
Venue: Room 214, Cheng Yu Tung Building, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Abstract:
This presentation will offer a comparative perspective on innovations and aspirations in contemporary psychiatry and mental health services in Indonesia and China over the past two decades. The presentation opens with the story of how a focus on unlocking the severely mentally ill became central to the stories of innovation and expansion of mental health services and mental health policy. Turning points such as the SARS epidemic in China and disasters and trauma, including the Tsunami of 2004 and civil conflict in Aceh Indonesia, are seen as critical to shaping the dynamics of the psychiatric imaginary and the evolving status of mental health professionals. Global discourses influence each society as do local political economies mental health services. Comparative analysis highlights distinctive differences in state power, cultural discourses including those on burden for care and social stigma, social media and global influences, and the range of reach of mental health services in times of public uncertainties in both societies. Discussion may explore cultural and political differences in each nation, in diverse settings in these distinctively different societies. China is the most populous country and Indonesia in the fourth most populous country in the globe. China has approximately 20,000 physicians trained in mental health care, and Indonesia has approximately 1000 psychiatrists. We begin with that brute fact and move to explore ways the future of psychiatry and mental health services are imagined by those who practice as well as by those with lived experiences.
Bio:
Mary-Jo Good, Emeritus Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School, is a comparative sociologist and medical anthropologist who studies the culture of medicine and psychiatry in the United States and globally. Her current projects explore “revolutionary” interventions in the culture and political economy of psychiatry and mental health services in Indonesia and China.