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The Making of an Epidemic: Depression Multiple and Glocal Mental Health in Kerala

The Making of an Epidemic: Depression Multiple and Glocal Mental Health in Kerala

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The Making of an Epidemic: Depression Multiple and Glocal Mental Health in Kerala
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<strong>Centre for the Study of Social Systems School of Social Sciences</strong> <strong>CSSS Colloquium</strong> <strong>Dr. Claudia Lang</strong> (Ludwig-Maximilians University, Munich) Will be presenting a paper on <strong>The Making of an Epidemic: Depression Multiple and Glocal Mental Health in Kerala</strong> <strong>Date : August 4, 2016 </strong> <strong>Abstract:</strong> "Depression – the silent epidemic", titled India Today in March 2015. In this paper, I trace how depression has moved from a minor clinically severe psychiatric category into a common mild and moderate disorder. In Kerala, depression is widely diagnosed with brief symptom scales and managed largely not only by mainstream psychiatrists but also by general practitioners and primary health centers, psychologists and counselors, Ayurvedic practitioners and religious healers. Stakeholders of health policy in India have increased their efforts to raise awareness of depression and to expand the mental health sector. Socio-economic and existential problems are thus reconfigured as individual disorders and localized in a neurochemical imbalance in the brain, thus medicalizing social suffering and replacing structural solutions by pharmaceutical care and (self-)surveillance. At the same time, somatization theory of depression in India with its contested colonial legacy expands the category of depression further by including multiple somatic complaints under this presumably universal disorder. Yet, the introduction of depression as a mental health category and a public health concern in India are poorly investigated. In this paper, I explore the assemblage of concepts, institutions, pharmaceuticals and practices involved in stabilizing and experiencing depression in Kerala and into the multiple ontological translations embodied in this process. Bio: Claudia Lang is a social anthropologist and research fellow at the Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich, Germany. She has done extensive fieldwork on depression and mental health, mainstream and Ayurvedic psychiatry and ritual healing in Kerala, South India and on gender and intersexuality in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. She has taught at the universities of Munich and Münster and is involved in ethnographic-historical research on the introduction of depression as a public health concern in India. She has published on Ayurvedic psychiatry, ritual healing and intersexuality. Her current book deals with the local appropriation and multiple reality of depression in Kerala.

A warm welcome to the modified and updated website of the Centre for East Asian Studies. The East Asian region has been at the forefront of several path-breaking changes since 1970s beginning with the redefining the development architecture with its State-led development model besides emerging as a major region in the global politics and a key hub of the sophisticated technologies. The Centre is one of the thirteen Centres of the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi that provides a holistic understanding of the region.

Initially, established as a Centre for Chinese and Japanese Studies, it subsequently grew to include Korean Studies as well. At present there are eight faculty members in the Centre. Several distinguished faculty who have now retired include the late Prof. Gargi Dutt, Prof. P.A.N. Murthy, Prof. G.P. Deshpande, Dr. Nranarayan Das, Prof. R.R. Krishnan and Prof. K.V. Kesavan. Besides, Dr. Madhu Bhalla served at the Centre in Chinese Studies Programme during 1994-2006. In addition, Ms. Kamlesh Jain and Dr. M. M. Kunju served the Centre as the Documentation Officers in Chinese and Japanese Studies respectively.

The academic curriculum covers both modern and contemporary facets of East Asia as each scholar specializes in an area of his/her interest in the region. The integrated course involves two semesters of classes at the M. Phil programme and a dissertation for the M. Phil and a thesis for Ph. D programme respectively. The central objective is to impart an interdisciplinary knowledge and understanding of history, foreign policy, government and politics, society and culture and political economy of the respective areas. Students can explore new and emerging themes such as East Asian regionalism, the evolving East Asian Community, the rise of China, resurgence of Japan and the prospects for reunification of the Korean peninsula. Additionally, the Centre lays great emphasis on the building of language skills. The background of scholars includes mostly from the social science disciplines; History, Political Science, Economics, Sociology, International Relations and language.

Several students of the centre have been recipients of prestigious research fellowships awarded by Japan Foundation, Mombusho (Ministry of Education, Government of Japan), Saburo Okita Memorial Fellowship, Nippon Foundation, Korea Foundation, Nehru Memorial Fellowship, and Fellowship from the Chinese and Taiwanese Governments. Besides, students from Japan receive fellowship from the Indian Council of Cultural Relations.