'There are orphans in Africa still looking for my hands': African women refugees and the sources of emotional distress

Farida Tilbury
Murdoch University, Murdoch, WA

Mark Rapley
Murdoch University, Murdoch, WA

PP: 054 - 064

Abstract

This paper explores issues of emotional distress expressed by refugee women from Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan and Eritrea who now live in Western Australia.

Qualitative data from interviews and focus groups are used to illustrate differences in understandings of distress, including depression and anxiety, and women's understandings of the causes of, and solutions to, what have been defined by service providers as 'mental health' problems.

The findings challenge Western biomedical approaches to dealing with prolonged grief and distress among migrant communities, which frequently reinforce disempowerment. We argue that it is the structural determinants of powerlessness that need to be addressed, rather than individual psyches.

Keywords

African; culture; depression; mental health; migrant; refugee; women; health

View references

References

Ager A (ed) (1999) Refugees: Perspectives on the experience of forced migration, New York: Cassell.

APA (American Psychiatric Association) (1994) Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, Washington DC: American Psychiatric Association.

Asekeh G and Tilbury F (forthcoming) African migrants in Western Australia, in Migrant contributions to Western Australia, Edited collection commissioned by Office of Multicultural Interests.

Astbury J (1999) Gender and mental health, www.hsph.harvard.edu/Organizations/healthnet/HUpapers/gender/astbury.pdf

Baldassar L (2001) Visits home: Migration experiences between Italy and Australia, Carlton South: Melbourne University Press.

Berry JW (2001) A psychology of immigration, Journal of Social Issues 57(3): 615-632.

Bhugra D and Bahl V (eds) (1999) Ethnicity: An agenda for mental health, London: Gaskell.

Brown G (1998) Genetic and population perspectives on life events and depression, Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology 33: 363-372.

Brown G and Harris T (1978) Social origins of depression: A study of psychiatric disorder in women, London: Tavistock.

Busfield J (1996) Men, women and madness: Understanding gender and mental disorder, Basingstoke: Macmillan.

Castillo RJ (1997) Culture and mental illness: A client-centered approach, Pacific Grove: Brooks/Cole Publishing Co.

Chu C (1998) Cross-cultural health issues in contemporary Australia, Ethnicity and Health 3(1/2): 125-134.

Colic-Peisker V and Tilbury F (2003) 'Active' and 'Passive' resettlement: The influence of host culture, support services, and refugees' own resources on the choice of resettlement style, International Migration 41: 5.

Dusevic N, Baume P and Malak A-E (2001) The development of a framework for suicide prevention among culturally and linguistically diverse communities in New South Wales, North Parramatta, NSW: NSW Transcultural Mental Health Centre.

Ebrahim S (1996) Ethnic elders, British Medical Journal 3131: 610-613.

Ferguson B and Pittaway E (eds) (1999) Nobody wants to talk about it: Refugee women's mental health, Parramatta: Transcultural Mental Health Centre.

Fernando S (ed) (1995) Mental health in a multi-ethnic society: A multidisciplinary handbook, London: Routledge.

Gilligan C (1982) In a different voice: Psychological theory and women's development, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.

Hansen S, McHoul A and Rapley M (2003) Beyond help: A consumer's guide to mental health, Ross-on-Wye: PCCS Books.

Hickie I (2002) Responding to the Australian experience of depression, Medical Journal of Australia May, supplement: depression and the community 176 20: S61-S62.

Holland S (1990) Psychotherapy, oppression and social action: Gender, race and class in black women's depression, in R Perelberg and A Miller (eds) Gender and power in families, London: Routledge.

Jackson WS (1985) Acedia the sin and its relationship to sorrow and melancholia, in A Kleinman and B Goode (eds) Culture and depression: Studies in the anthropology and cross-cultural psychiatry of affect and disorder, Berkeley: University of California Press.

Jayasuriya L, Sang D and Fielding A (1992) Ethnicity, immigration and mental illness: A critical review of Australian research, Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service.

Jupp J (1994) Exile or refuge? The settlement of refugee, humanitarian and displaced immigrants, Canberra: ANU Centre for Immigration and Multicultural Studies.

Karp D (1996) Speaking of sadness: Depression, disconnection and the meanings of illness, New York: Oxford University Press.

Kleinman A and Goode B (eds) (1985) Culture and depression: Studies in the anthropology and cross-cultural psychiatry of affect and disorder, Berkeley: University of California Press.

Levin DM (ed.) (1987) Pathologies of the modern self: Postmodern studies on narcissism, schizophrenia and depression, New York: New York University Press.

Lutz C (1985) Depression and the translation of emotional worlds, in A Kleinman and B Goode Culture and depression: Studies in the anthropology and cross-cultural psychiatry of affect and disorder, Berkeley: University of California Press.

Marsella A, Friedman M, Gerrity E and Scurfield R (eds) (1996) Ethnocultural aspects of post-traumatic stress disorder, Washington: American Psychological Association.

McDonald B and Steel Z (1997) Immigrants and mental health: An epidemiological analysis, Sydney: Transcultural Mental Health Centre.

McGown RB (1999) Muslims in the diaspora: The Somali communities of London and Toronto, Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Minas IH (1990) Mental health in a culturally diverse society, in J Reid and P Trompf (eds) The health of immigrant Australia, Sydney: Harcourt Brace and Jovanovich.

Minas I, Lambert T, Kostov S and Boranga G (1996) Mental health services for NESB immigrants: Transforming policy into practice, South Carlton: Bureau of Immigration, Multicultural and Population Research.

Mulvaney J (1994) Medicalization, marginalization and control, in C Waddell and A Petersen (eds) Just health, Melbourne: Churchill Livingstone.

Murray C and Lopez A (eds) (1996) The global burden of disease: A comprehensive assessment of mortality and disability from diseases, injuries and risk factors in 1990 and project to 2020, Geneva: World Health Organisation.

Parker G (2003) Depressions black and blue: Changing the Zeitgeist, Medical Journal of Australia 179: 335-336.

Parsons C (1990) Cross-cultural issues in health care, in J Reid and P Trompf (eds) The health of immigrant Australia, Sydney: Harcourt Brace & Jovanovich: 108-153.

Picinelli M and Homen FG (1997) Gender difference in the epidemiology of affective disorders and schizophrenia, Geneva: World Health Organisation.

Pilgrim D and Bentall R (1999) The medicalisation of misery: A critical realist analysis of the concept of depression, Journal of Mental Health 8(3): 261-274.

Rice P (ed) (1999) Living in a new country: Understanding migrants' health. Melbourne: Ausmed Publications.

Samson C (ed) (1999) Health studies: A critical and cross-cultural reader, Oxford: Blackwell.

Silverman D (2001) Interpreting qualitative data: Methods for analysing talk text and interaction, London: Sage.

Smail D (1998) The origins of unhappiness, London: Harper Collins.

Smith D (1987) The everyday world as problematic: A feminist sociology. Boston: Northeastern University Press.

Smith D (1979) A sociology for women, in JA Sherman and ET Beck (eds) The prism of sex: essays in the sociology of knowledge, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

Sozomenou A, Mitchell P, Fitzgerald M, Malak A-E and Silove D (2000) Mental health consumer participation in a culturally diverse society, Sydney: Australian Transcultural Mental Health Network.

Udo-Ekpo LT (1999) The Africans in Australia: Expectations and shattered dreams. Adelaide: Seaview Press.

Ustin TB and Sartorius N (1995) Mental illness in general health care: An international study, Geneva: John Wiley, on behalf of the World Health Organisation.

Ward C, Bochner S and Furnham A (2001) Refugees, in C Ward, S Bochner and A Furnham (eds) The psychology of culture shock, New York: Routledge.

WHO (1993) The ICD 10 international classification of mental and behavioural disorders: Diagnostic criteria for research, Geneva: World Health Organization.

Williams T (1991) The mental health of immigrants, in B Ferguson and E Browne (eds) Health care and immigrants, Sydney: MacLennan & Petty.

Wierzbicka A (1999) Emotions across languages and cultures: Diversity and universals, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Navigate: Archives | Contents | Top of page

Sign Me Up for latest release updates

*  Email Address:
    First Name:
    Last Name:
*  I am interested in::





 

Web Feed

Latest Articles

Special Issues

Culture, Death and Dying with Dignity
Volume 22/1
Summary

Lifestyle Science: Self-healing, co-production and DIY
Volume 21/3
Summary

Transformations in Health Care: Privatisation, Corporatisation and the Market
Volume 20/3
Summary | Contents

Mental Health and Illness: Practice and Service Issues
Volume 20/2
Summary | Contents

Men's Health
Volume 19/4
Summary | Contents

Food, ethics and identity
Volume 19/3
Summary | Contents

Sociology, Recreational Drugs and Alcohol
Volume 19/2
Summary | Contents

Ageing, Anti-ageing and Globalization: Transitions and limits in the governance of ageing
Volume 18/4
Summary | Contents

Expert Patient Policy
Volume 18/2
Summary | Contents

Social Determinants of Child Health and Wellbeing
Volume 18/1
Summary | Contents

Integrative, Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Challenges for Biomedicine?
Volume 17/4
Contents

Community, Family, Citizenship and the Health of LGBTIQ People
Volume 17/3
Summary | Contents

Re-imagining Preventive Health: Theoretical Perspectives
Volume 17/2
Summary | Contents

Death, Dying and Loss in the 21st Century
Volume 16/5
Summary | Contents

Social Equity and Health
Volume 16/2
Summary | Contents

Medical Dominance Revisited
Volume 15/5
Summary | Contents

Childbirth, Politics and the Culture of Risk
Volume 15/4
Summary | Contents

Revisiting Sexualities and Health: Contributions from Sociological Insights
Volume 15/3
Summary | Contents

Closing Asylums for the Mentally Ill: Social Consequences
Volume 14/3
Summary | Contents

Workplace Health: The Injuries of Neoliberalism
Volume 14/1
Summary | Contents

Rural Health Symposium: Patients and Practitioners
Volume 13/2
Summary | Contents

Symposium on Women's Health
Volume 13/1
Summary | Contents

Symposium on Women's Health: Breast Health - Health and Ageing
Volume 12/2
Summary | Contents

Symposium on Indigenous Health and the Contribution of Sociology
Volume 10/2
Summary | Contents

Research Funding
Volume /

Research Methodology: Theory and Practice
Volume /

Reconstructing Health Knowledge
Volume /

crossref.org - The citation linking backbone



Website by Arrowsmith Websites Sunshine Coast. Business & Government Websites, Social Media, Web Hosting, Domain Names & SEO. Website Design Sunshine Coast, Australia.