Skultans Vieda
Department of Sociology, University of Bristol, UK.
Int J Soc Psychiatry. 2006 Jan;52(1):73-83. doi: 10.1177/0020764005060854.
The title of this article is deliberately chosen and reflects its agenda: to outline the contribution of ethnography to psychiatry. Ethnography is the study of culture through intensive participation, observation and listening. The postmodernists remind us that it is also the writing of culture (literally translated from the Greek). And in focusing on the writing of ethnographic texts they have alerted us to the problematic nature of transferring observation and experience into text. But an ethnographic account of psychiatry is possible only to the extent that we accept that psychiatry and the illnesses with which it deals are parts of culture. Anthropologists have long argued that psychiatric theory and practice are best understood using the same interpretive tools as are applied to other areas of cultural life, be it religion, cosmology or magic.
本文的标题是特意选取的，反映了其主旨：概述人种志对精神病学的贡献。人种志是通过深入参与、观察和倾听来研究文化。后现代主义者提醒我们，它也是文化的书写（从希腊语直译过来）。在关注人种志文本的撰写时，他们让我们意识到将观察和经验转化为文本存在问题。但只有在我们承认精神病学及其所处理的疾病是文化的一部分的情况下，才有可能对精神病学进行人种志描述。人类学家长期以来一直认为，使用与应用于文化生活其他领域（无论是宗教、宇宙观还是魔法）相同的解释工具，能最好地理解精神病学理论和实践。
