Wèrè and the Ontological Politics of Global Mental Health: Distributed Cognition in Yorùbá Traditional Medicine.

IF 1.9 4区医学 Q2 ANTHROPOLOGY

Culture Medicine and Psychiatry Pub Date : 2026-05-27 DOI:10.1007/s11013-026-09992-1

Obafemi Jegede

{"title":"Wèrè and the Ontological Politics of Global Mental Health: Distributed Cognition in Yorùbá Traditional Medicine.","authors":"Obafemi Jegede","doi":"10.1007/s11013-026-09992-1","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Global mental health initiatives increasingly replace indigenous diagnostic categories with neuropsychiatric frameworks, framing this as anti-stigma progress. Drawing on twenty years of ethnographic research with traditional healers in southwestern Nigeria and my position as both researcher and practitioner, this paper examines wèrè-the Yorùbá term for mental illness-to reveal fundamental ontological incommensurability between Western personalistic medicine and Yorùbá ecological-cosmological healing. Through linguistic analysis, micro-phenomenological interviews, and participant observation, I demonstrate that wèrè (wé = weave; ìrè = misery) diagnoses not individual brain dysfunction but unraveling of interconnections across bodily, environmental, ancestral, and spiritual domains. Yorùbá language grammatically locates cognitive processes beyond the brain-fear in chest (ayá), happiness in stomach (inú), focus in liver (ẹ̀dọ̀)-while recognizing environmental agents (rivers, trees, earth) as cognitive beings with agency requiring ritual attention. Therapeutic protocols operationalize \"totalness\" (gbogbo àyè), addressing not only persons but ecological-cosmological fields where disequilibrium occurs. Replacing wèrè with àrún ọpọ̀lọ (brain illness) constitutes epistemic violence, imposing personalistic ontology where ecological-cosmological ontology operates. Global mental health must recognize ontological pluralism: multiple valid healing sciences operating in incommensurable realities.</p>","PeriodicalId":47634,"journal":{"name":"Culture Medicine and Psychiatry","volume":"50 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.9000,"publicationDate":"2026-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Culture Medicine and Psychiatry","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s11013-026-09992-1","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ANTHROPOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Abstract

Global mental health initiatives increasingly replace indigenous diagnostic categories with neuropsychiatric frameworks, framing this as anti-stigma progress. Drawing on twenty years of ethnographic research with traditional healers in southwestern Nigeria and my position as both researcher and practitioner, this paper examines wèrè-the Yorùbá term for mental illness-to reveal fundamental ontological incommensurability between Western personalistic medicine and Yorùbá ecological-cosmological healing. Through linguistic analysis, micro-phenomenological interviews, and participant observation, I demonstrate that wèrè (wé = weave; ìrè = misery) diagnoses not individual brain dysfunction but unraveling of interconnections across bodily, environmental, ancestral, and spiritual domains. Yorùbá language grammatically locates cognitive processes beyond the brain-fear in chest (ayá), happiness in stomach (inú), focus in liver (ẹ̀dọ̀)-while recognizing environmental agents (rivers, trees, earth) as cognitive beings with agency requiring ritual attention. Therapeutic protocols operationalize "totalness" (gbogbo àyè), addressing not only persons but ecological-cosmological fields where disequilibrium occurs. Replacing wèrè with àrún ọpọ̀lọ (brain illness) constitutes epistemic violence, imposing personalistic ontology where ecological-cosmological ontology operates. Global mental health must recognize ontological pluralism: multiple valid healing sciences operating in incommensurable realities.

查看原文本刊更多论文

Wèrè和全球心理健康的本体论政治：Yorùbá传统医学中的分布式认知。

全球精神卫生倡议越来越多地用神经精神病学框架取代土著诊断类别，将其定义为反污名化的进展。基于对尼日利亚西南部传统治疗师二十年的民族志研究，以及我作为研究人员和实践者的身份，本文考察了w r （Yorùbá精神疾病术语），以揭示西方个人医学与Yorùbá生态宇宙学治疗之间基本的本体论不可通约性。通过语言分析、微观现象学访谈和参与者观察，我证明wèrè （w =编织；ìrè =痛苦）诊断的不是个体的大脑功能障碍，而是揭示了身体、环境、祖先和精神领域的相互联系。Yorùbá语言在语法上将认知过程定位在大脑之外——恐惧在胸（ay），快乐在胃（inú），专注在肝（i / m / d / m）——同时将环境因素（河流、树木、地球）视为具有需要仪式关注的代理的认知存在。治疗方案实现“整体性”（gbogbo àyè），不仅涉及人，而且涉及发生不平衡的生态-宇宙学领域。以àrún ọpọ脑病代替wèrè构成了认知暴力，在生态宇宙论的本体论中强加了个人主义的本体论。全球精神卫生必须承认本体论的多元性：多种有效的治疗科学在不可通约的现实中运作。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

Culture Medicine and Psychiatry Multiple-

CiteScore

3.70

自引率

5.90%

发文量

期刊介绍： Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry is an international and interdisciplinary forum for the publication of work in three interrelated fields: medical and psychiatric anthropology, cross-cultural psychiatry, and related cross-societal and clinical epidemiological studies. The journal publishes original research, and theoretical papers based on original research, on all subjects in each of these fields. Interdisciplinary work which bridges anthropological and medical perspectives and methods which are clinically relevant are particularly welcome, as is research on the cultural context of normative and deviant behavior, including the anthropological, epidemiological and clinical aspects of the subject. Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry also fosters systematic and wide-ranging examinations of the significance of culture in health care, including comparisons of how the concept of culture is operationalized in anthropological and medical disciplines. With the increasing emphasis on the cultural diversity of society, which finds its reflection in many facets of our day to day life, including health care, Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry is required reading in anthropology, psychiatry and general health care libraries.