Health Disparities in the African Diaspora: A Laboratory for Social Engagement. Student research Symposium. Self-Diagnosis and Treatment: Exploration of Mental Health and Coping in the Sudanese Diaspora
PRESENTED by Elizabeth nowack, Oluwadara Johnson, Jenny Obiaya, Martha Tesfalul, and Marianna Tu
A group of over 25,000 southern Sudanese, known as the “Lost boys (and Girls),” are renown for their survival and on-foot migration to refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya during Sudan’s civil war in the 1980s and 1990s. Given the intimate violence witnessed by the overwhelming majority of the Lost boys, and the undeniably traumatic experience they endured, one might expect to find high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder (pTSD), and therapeutic help-seeking, in this population. In this paper, we critically examine reasonable expectations that Lost boys would seek professional help in coping with mental
health stresses. Drawing upon three months of ethnographic participatory fieldwork and interviews with the South Sudanese community in Arlington, Massachusetts, we found that pTSD was but one issue among other important stressors that preoccupy this migrant community and affect their well-being. As our informants largely rejected Western psychiatry, our fieldwork demonstrates the need to recognize other ways of coping. It also emphasizes the need to enlarge conceptions/categories of ‘stress disorder’ to include the persistent structural issues that deracination and living between two worlds continue to present for the Sudanese Lost boys today.
Concepts of Health, Diet, and Diabetes in the Haitian Immigrant population
PRESENTED by Tonia branche, Tracy Han, Ariel Sloan, and Xun Zhou
While the increased prevalence of type-2 diabetes amongst black Americans is quickly becoming a well-studied trend, little research has been done on how this disease affects Haitian-Americans, a subset of the population with a unique and potentially significant cultural and social background. public health professionals approach diabetes through a biomedical lens, recognizing dietary risk factors as a primary cause of diabetes prevalence. However, through ethnographic interviews and analysis, we learned that Haitian immigrants’ understanding of diabetes is complicated by other cultural factors as well. Specifically, three such factors are: “healthy” body image, diabetes disease perception as it is tied to migration to the US, and “natural” vs. “unnatural” foods and methods of food preparation.
Shifting Frameworks of Medical pluralism: The Heightened Significance of Herbal remedies in the Senegalese Diasporic Community in boston
PRESENTED by Anne Antonellis, nworah Ayogu, nita bhatia, Sarah Maxwell, and bianca Verma
Medical pluralism refers to the co-existence of multiple healing systems within a culture. based on three months of ethnographic research with the Senegalese migrant community in boston, we found that ‘disorders’ (often brought on by fatigue and overwork) manifested through symptoms that variably necessitated the integration of herbal medicine and biomedicine. We theorize that work, as it is tied to fatigue, for this community is a source of anxiety for many of our informants. Most are “economic migrants” who were “forced” to leave home due to the ongoing economic crisis in Senegal. Familial obligations and reliance on their remittances are sources of stress for them, while the “remedies” for such stressors include herbal and biomedical mixes. These remedies appear to take on new therapeutic meanings in the US context, while they also seem to combat a deep nostalgia for “home”.
“Money as blood”: Worcester’s Akan Twi Community
PRESENTED by randall baldassarre, Helen bradshaw, Emily Harburg, and Charlotte Twaalfhoven
The well-known Akan proverb, “Sika y mogya,” literally translates to “your money is your blood.” Culturally interpreted, this common phrase emphasizes that financial security traduces bodily health. Through ethnographic participatory research with the Akan migrant community in Worcester, Massachusetts, our research group explored the ways in which Akan informants actually saw money, in their new US context, as both life-giving and corruptive. Thus, we explore the varied implications that “Sika y mogya” now has for work, community, and conceptions of health and well-being for this African migrant population.