This Thesis Has Been Submitted in Fulfilment of the Requirements for a Postgraduate Degree (E.G
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This thesis has been submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for a postgraduate degree (e.g. PhD, MPhil, DClinPsychol) at the University of Edinburgh. Please note the following terms and conditions of use: This work is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights, which are retained by the thesis author, unless otherwise stated. A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author. When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given. 1 Multilingualism, Social Inequalities, and Mental Health: An Anthropological Study in Mauritius Laszlo Lajtai Ph.D. Thesis The University of Edinburgh Department of Social Anthropology 2014 2 Declaration This thesis has been composed entirely by myself, László Lajtai, Ph.D. candidate in Social Anthropology. All work, unless otherwise specified, is entirely my own, and has not been submitted for any other degree or professional qualification. 12th October 2014 Laszló Lajtai 3 Abstract This thesis analyses two different features of Mauritian society in relation to multilingualism. The first is how multilingualism appears in everyday Mauritian life. The second is how it influences mental health provision in this country. The sociolinguistics of Mauritius has drawn the attention of many linguists in the past (Baker 1972; Stein 1982; Rajah- Carrim 2004; Biltoo 2004; Atchia-Emmerich 2005; Thomson 2008), but linguists tend to have quite different views on Mauritian languages than many Mauritians themselves. Language shifts and diverse language games in the Wittgensteinian sense are commonplace in Mauritius, and have been in the focus of linguistic and anthropological interest (Rajah-Carrim 2004 and Eisenlohr 2007), but this is the first research so far about the situation in the clinical arena. Sociolinguistic studies tend to revolve only around a few other domains of language; in particular, there is great attention on proper language use – or the lack of it – in education, which diverts attention away from equally important domains of social life. Little has been published and is known about mental health, the state of psychology and psychiatry in Mauritius and its relationship with language use. This work demonstrates that mental health can provide a new viewpoint to understand complex social processes in Mauritius. People dealing with mental health problems come across certain, dedicated social institutions that reflect, represent and form an important part of the wider society. This encounter is to a great extent verbal; therefore, the use of language or languages here can serve as an object of observation for the researcher. The agency of the social actors in question – patients, relatives and staff members in selected settings – manifests largely in speaking, including sometimes a choice of available languages and 4 language variations. This choice is influenced by the pragmatism of the ‘problem’ that brings the patient to those institutions but also simultaneously determined by the dynamic complexity of sociohistorical and economic circumstances. It is surprising for many policy makers and theorists that social suffering has not lessened in recent decades in spite of global technological advancements and increased democracy. This thesis demonstrates through ethnographic examples that existing provisions (particularly in biomedicine) that have been created to attend to problems of mental health may operate contrary to the principle of help. In the case of Mauritius, this distress is significantly due to postcolonial inequities and elite rivalries that are in significant measure associated with the use of postcolonial languages. Biomedical institutions and particularly the encounters among social actors in biomedical institutions, which are not isolated or independent from the prevailing social context, can contribute to the reproduction of social suffering. 5 Table of Content Abstract............................................................................................. 3 Table of Content............................................................................... 5 Acknowledgements.......................................................................... 9 Chapter 1. Introduction................................................................... 11 Language as power, language as social capital.................................. 12 Language as political power: themes of linguistic anthropology....... 15 The genesis of francophonie.............................................................. 16 Conversational language shifts as social capital................................19 Social suffering and the role of language in mental healthcare......... 21 Mental health, language and anthropology........................................ 24 Fieldwork and methodology.............................................................. 26 Fieldwork and languages................................................................... 28 Languages in this fieldwork............................................................... 31 Participant observation in Mauritius.................................................. 34 On not using research assistants........................................................ 36 Doing anthropology as a clinician..................................................... 38 A foreign anthropologist amidst overpowering ethnicity issues........ 40 Overview of chapters......................................................................... 44 Chapter 2. Languages and Some Current Affairs in Mauritius.. 48 Introduction........................................................................................ 48 Colonial comradeship and the genesis of Franco-Mauritian and gens de couleur elites..... ................................................... ............................48 The rise of Indo-Mauritian elite, the evolution of segregation, and the transformation of caste...................................................................... 55 Categories in Mauritius: pragmatics and controversies..................... 62 Summary............................................................................................ 68 Chapter 3. Languages in Mauritius............................................... 70 6 Introduction........................................................................................ 70 Multilingualism in Mauritius............................................................. 70 Language and ideologies in Mauritius............................................... 76 The road to the recognition of Mauritian Creole............................... 77 Lakampagn and Fezer - Creole Fransize and other Creole variations......................... ..................... ........................................... 84 Mauritian French - Cet obscure objet du désir.................................. 88 Mauritian Bhojpuri - Survival among Myths and Depreciation........ 95 Education and language..................................................................... 100 Summary............................................................................................ 109 Chapter 4. Healthcare and languages in Mauritius...................... 111 Introduction........................................................................................ 111 A few key health indicators of Mauritius........................................... 112 An example of the lay perspective on Mauritian healthcare.............. 113 Traditional healing............................................................................. 116 Public Healthcare............................................................................... 117 Bottleneck and the patient crowd in the ‘Hospital’.................................. 117 The dermatology out-patient conveyor belt............................................. 123 The psychiatry OPD............................................................................. 126 Private healthcare............................................................................... 130 The Apollo-Bramwell Hospital.............................................................. 131 Dr R.’s Cabinet.................................................................................... 132 Nouvelle Clinique du Bon Pasteur (The New Clinic of the Good Pastor)..137 Fatige: depression.............................................................................. 140 Comparing biomedical sectors: remarks on ‘public’ and ‘private’ and the linguistic aspect of segregation.......................................................... 143 Summary............................................................................................ 147 Chapter 5. The Century................................................................... 149 Introduction........................................................................................ 149 The Century in Plaine Verte............................................................... 149 7 NGOs and Disabilities....................................................................... 151 The school at the Century Welfare Association................................