William Sax - Böcker

Rituals transform citizens into presidents and princesses into queens. They transform sick persons into healthy ones, and public space into prohibited sanctuary. Shamanic rituals heal, legal rituals bind, political rituals ratify, and religious rituals sanctify. But how exactly do they accomplish these things? How do rituals work? This is the question of ritual efficacy, and although it is one of the very first questions that people everywhere ask of rituals, surprisingly little has been written on the topic. In fact, this collection of 10 contributed essays is the first to explicitly address the question of ritual efficacy. The authors do not aspire to answer the question 'how do rituals work?' in a simplistic fashion, but rather to show how complex the question is. While some contributors do indeed advance a particular theory of ritual efficacy, others ask whether the question makes any sense at all, and most show how complex it is by referring to the sociocultural environment in which it is posed, since the answer depends on who is asking the question, and what criteria they use to evaluate the efficacy of ritual. In his introduction, William Sax emphasizes that the very notion of ritual efficacy is a suspicious one because, according to a widespread 'modern' and 'scientific' viewpoint, rituals are merely expressive, and therefore cannot be efficacious. Rituals are thought of as superficial, 'merely symbolic,' and certainly not effective. Nevertheless many people insist that rituals 'work,' and the various positions taken on the question tell us a great deal about the social and historical background of the people involved. One essay, for example, illuminates a dispute between 'materialist' and 'enlightenment' Catholics in Ecuador, with the former affirming the notion of ritual efficacy and the latter doubting it. In other essays, contributors address instances in which orthodox religious figures (mullahs, church authorities, and even scientific positivists) discount the efficacy of rituals. In several of the essays, 'modern' people are suspicious of rituals and tend to deny their efficacy, confirming the theme highlighted in Sax's introduction.

Rituals transform citizens into presidents and princesses into queens. They transform sick persons into healthy ones, and public space into prohibited sanctuary. Shamanic rituals heal, legal rituals bind, political rituals ratify, and religious rituals sanctify. But how exactly do they accomplish these things? How do rituals work? This is the question of ritual efficacy, and although it is one of the very first questions that people everywhere ask of rituals, surprisingly little has been written on the topic. In fact, this collection of 10 contributed essays is the first to explicitly address the question of ritual efficacy. The authors do not aspire to answer the question 'how do rituals work?' in a simplistic fashion, but rather to show how complex the question is. While some contributors do indeed advance a particular theory of ritual efficacy, others ask whether the question makes any sense at all, and most show how complex it is by referring to the sociocultural environment in which it is posed, since the answer depends on who is asking the question, and what criteria they use to evaluate the efficacy of ritual. In his introduction, William Sax emphasizes that the very notion of ritual efficacy is a suspicious one because, according to a widespread 'modern' and 'scientific' viewpoint, rituals are merely expressive, and therefore cannot be efficacious. Rituals are thought of as superficial, 'merely symbolic,' and certainly not effective. Nevertheless many people insist that rituals 'work,' and the various positions taken on the question tell us a great deal about the social and historical background of the people involved. One essay, for example, illuminates a dispute between 'materialist' and 'enlightenment' Catholics in Ecuador, with the former affirming the notion of ritual efficacy and the latter doubting it. In other essays, contributors address instances in which orthodox religious figures (mullahs, church authorities, and even scientific positivists) discount the efficacy of rituals. In several of the essays, 'modern' people are suspicious of rituals and tend to deny their efficacy, confirming the theme highlighted in Sax's introduction.

In The Movement for Global Mental Health: Critical Views from South and Southeast Asia, prominent anthropologists, public health physicians, and psychiatrists respond sympathetically but critically to the Movement for Global Mental Health (MGMH). They question some of its fundamental assumptions: the idea that mental disorders can clearly be identified; that they are primarily of biological origin; that the world is currently facing an epidemic of them; that the most appropriate treatments for them normally involve psycho-pharmaceutical drugs; and that local or indigenous therapies are of little interest or importance for treating them. The contributors argue that, on the contrary, defining mental disorders is difficult and culturally variable; that social and biographical factors are often important causes of them; that the epidemic of mental disorders may be an effect of new ways of measuring them; and that the countries of South and Southeast Asia have abundant, though non-psychiatric, resources for dealing with them. In short, they advocate a thoroughgoing mental health pluralism.|1. Introduction: Global Mental Health: Critical Views from South Asia and Beyond - William Sax and Claudia Lang,Critical Histories, 2. Mental Ills for All: Genealogies of Global Mental Health - Stefan Ecks, 3. Schizoid Balinese? Anthropology's Double-Bind: Radical Alterity and Its Consequences for Schizophrenia - Annette Hornbacher, 4. Misdiagnosis: Global Mental Health, Social Determinants of Health and Beyond - Anindya Das and Mohan Rao,The Limits of Global Mental Health, 5. Jinns and the Proletarian Mumin Subject: Exploring the Limits of Global Mental Health in Bangladesh - Projit Bihari Mukharji, 6. Psychedelic Therapy: Diplomatic Re-compositions of Life/Non-life, and the Living and the Dead - Harish Naraindas,Alternatives, 7. The House of Love and the Mental Hospital: Zones of Care and Recovery in South India - Murphy Halliburton, 8. Ayurvedic Psychiatry and the Moral Physiology of Depression in Kerala - Claudia Lang, 9. Global Mental Therapy - William Sax,Afterwords, 10. Afterword - Johannes Quack, 11. 'Treatment' and Why We Need Alternatives: An Autoethnographic Reflection on Psychiatric Incarceration in India Anonymous, Index.|1. The contributors are leading figures from a variety of disciplines 2. The essays take a sympathetic but critical view of MGMH 3. The book takes a particular geographical point of view: from South and Southeast Asia.