Ethnopsychiatry is today a contested field, in which concepts and terms such as ethnicity, identity, culture, citizenship, traditional therapies or symbolic efficacy are used in a very controversial way. Recent accusations of ‘racism’ against some ethnopsychiatrists have contributed to making more obscure the deep roots of these issues and controversies. Little attention has been paid to analysing the complex legacy of colonial psychiatry, as well as the relationships among current definitions of ‘culture’ and ‘belonging’, post-colonial subjectivities and migration. In this article, the authors briefly analyse the contributions of Italian ethnopsychiatry and investigate the hidden expressions of racism and prejudice still characterizing mental health workers’ attitudes toward immigrants. It is argued that a ‘generative’ and community-based ethnopsychiatry can challenge the hegemony of western psychiatry and improve the quality of therapeutic strategies. © 2005, Sage Publications. All rights reserved.

Migration political economy of culture European and Italian context colonial psychiatry Ethnopsychiatry

political system cultural anthropology social psychology mental health service Ethnopsychology Europe community care Social Identification social interaction ethnology colonialism health personnel attitude social status Humans traditional medicine social psychiatry socioeconomics social welfare Article migration health care quality Prejudice health care access politics Emigration and Immigration Italy Sociology, Medical Anthropology, Cultural psychiatry Health Services Accessibility social behavior Culture