Sinking heart: A Punjabi communication of distress

Krause, Inga‐Britt

doi:10.1016/0277-9536(89)90202-5

Cited by 122 publications

(69 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…As the literature on bio-medical and lay concepts of mental health has grown, along with the literature on gender and mental health (Miles, 1988), only a small number of studies have focused on the specific question of personal constructions of mental distress among South Asian populations in Britain (Currer, 1986;Donovan, 1986;Krause, 1989;Fenton and Sadiq, 1993).…”

Section: Lay Concepts Of Mental Health: Studies Among South Asian Popmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One social anthropological account of South Asian women in Britain reports in more detail on the use of language (Krause, 1989) and illustrates an elaborate language and symbolism within which women express distress both mental and physical. She identifies 'the heart falls' (dil ghirda hat) as the typical form of communication of distress (among Punjabi women in Bedford).…”

Section: Lay Concepts Of Mental Health: Studies Among South Asian Popmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Much of the commentary has been speculative (Rack, 1982;Ineichen, 1990). Authors have made suggestions about how mental illness might be viewed among different migrant groups in Britain, but these typically have not been based on extended interviews with subjects (Cochrane and Stopes Roe, 1980;but cf Currer, 1986;Krause, 1989;Weiss et al, 1986). Social anthropological studies of migration, settlement, community and family among South Asians in Britain have offered detailed accounts of patterns of daily life, including interpretations of the world as seen from the vantage point of South Asian women (Shaw, 1988;Jeffery, 1976, Ballard and Ballard, 1977, Ballard, 1973, Watson, 1977 -but these studies made little or no reference to mental health and illness, (but see Shaw 1988:4).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Culture, relativism and the expression of mental distress: South Asian women in Britain

Fenton

Sadiq-Sangster

1996

Sociology Health & Illness

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Social anthropology and medical anthropology have presented a challenge to the belief that there are universal categories of mental illness. A relativist position would suggest that there are as many categories of mental health (or physical health) as there are languages and culture in which they are expressed.Intermediate arguments suggest that there may be common elements in ideas of mental illness but that cultural expression of syndromes may differ significantly, or that symptoms may cluster in different ways in different cultures. These arguments have been raised, as well as in cross national comparisons, in the context of minority groups (ethnic, cultural, language groups) in Britain. The research, reported here, on South Asian women in Bristol, shows that they have a clear conception of mental health and illness, a clear understanding of relationships between physical and mental health, and make important distinctions between types of mental ill-health. They describe mental distress in a culturally specific set of language terms and their accounts differ from English speakers in important ways. At the same time they describe a syndrome of mental distress which corresponds in a number of features to the category 'depression'.

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Section: Lay Concepts Of Mental Health: Studies Among South Asian Popmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Lay Concepts Of Mental Health: Studies Among South Asian Popmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Culture, relativism and the expression of mental distress: South Asian women in Britain

Fenton

Sadiq-Sangster

1996

Sociology Health & Illness

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“…If in the classic understanding of portraiture, 'the portrayer makes visible the inner essence of the sitter' (van Alphen 1997: 241), in Hussaini's case the portrayer makes his own 'inner essence' visible in relation to the portrayed. That the word for heart, 'dil', is frequently used for 'I' in parts of South Asia (Krause 1989: 568) might further support a figure-ground reversed understanding of Hussaini's paintings as non-representational self-portraits. 17 Of course, it is not so simple.…”

Section: Portraits Of What?mentioning

confidence: 98%

The Image after Strathern: Art and Persuasive Relationality in India’s Sanguinary Politics

Copeman

Street

2014

Theory, Culture & Society

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Publicly-enacted blood extractions (principally blood donation events and petitions or paintings in blood) in mass Indian political contexts (for instance, protest or political memorial events and election rallies) are a noteworthy present-day form of political enunciation in India, for such extractions – made to speak as and on behalf of political subject positions – are intensely communicative. Somewhat akin to the transformative fasts undertaken by Gandhi, such blood extractions seek to persuade from the moral high ground of political asceticism. This essay seeks to shed light on how and why these extractions have become such a means, with a particular focus on blood-based portraiture. What makes such portraits – chiefly of politicians and ‘freedom fighter’ martyrs – interesting from a Strathernian point of view is their immanent persuasive relationality. The insights of Strathern can help us to explicate these objects’ dynamic relational features, while reciprocally, the portraits may help us to illuminate and clarify the very particular and interesting nature of the way Strathern treats (and creates) images.

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“…The "sinking heart" illustrates this well. In Punjabi the notion of "sinking heart" conveys feelings of general weakness, but it also refers to a wider and in some way more concrete set of sensations and emotional states including physical sensations in the chest, s~dness, w<?rry, anxiety caused by physical exhaustIon or SOCIal and personal failure (Krause 1989). The expression is used by individuals in variõ us contexts.…”

Section: Cross-cultural Psychiatric Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cross-cultural psychiatric research: an anthropologist's view

Krause

1990

Psychiatr. bull.

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A need for improved communication between the social sciences and psychiatry is being expressed from many quarters. Interest in social and cultural issues is not, of course, new to psychiatry, but collaboration between the two approaches has not always been easy. Recently one social science in particular has become popular with psychiatry. This is social anthropology, and many psychiatrists consider that the inclusion of anthropological data and methods, particularly in cross-cultural research, can be useful and informative to psychiatry. What then is the relationship between anthropology and psychiatry and what are the problems which professionals face in attempting interdisciplinary research?

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Sinking heart: A Punjabi communication of distress

Cited by 122 publications

References 23 publications

Culture, relativism and the expression of mental distress: South Asian women in Britain

Culture, relativism and the expression of mental distress: South Asian women in Britain

The Image after Strathern: Art and Persuasive Relationality in India’s Sanguinary Politics

Cross-cultural psychiatric research: an anthropologist's view

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