Daughters of Parvati: Women and Madness in Contemporary India (Contemporary Ethnography)

Awarded the 2014 Eileen Basker Memorial Prize by the Society for Medical Anthropology division of the American Anthropological Association In her role as devoted wife, the Hindu goddess Parvati is the divine embodiment of viraha , the agony of separation from one's beloved, a form of love that is also intense suffering. These contradictory emotions reflect the overlapping dissolutions of love, family, and mental health explored by Sarah Pinto in this visceral ethnography. Daughters of Parvati centers on the lives of women in different settings of psychiatric care in northern India, particularly the contrasting environments of a private mental health clinic and a wing of a government hospital. Through an anthropological consideration of modern medicine in a nonwestern setting, Pinto challenges the dominant framework for addressing crises such as long-term involuntary commitment, poor treatment in homes, scarcity of licensed practitioners, heavy use of pharmaceuticals, and the ways psychiatry may reproduce constraining social conditions. Inflected by the author's own experience of separation and single motherhood during her fieldwork, Daughters of Parvati urges us to think about the ways women bear the consequences of the vulnerabilities of love and family in their minds, bodies, and social worlds.

In her role as devoted wife, the Hindu goddess Parvati is the divine embodiment of viraha, the agony of separation from one's beloved, a form of love that is also intense suffering. These contradictory emotions reflect the overlapping dissolutions of love, family, and mental health explored by Sarah Pinto in this visceral ethnography.

Daughters of Parvati centers on the lives of women in different settings of psychiatric care in northern India, particularly the contrasting environments of a private mental health clinic and a wing of a government hospital. Through an anthropological consideration of modern medicine in a nonwestern setting, Pinto challenges the dominant framework for addressing crises such as long-term involuntary commitment, poor treatment in homes, scarcity of licensed practitioners, heavy use of pharmaceuticals, and the ways psychiatry may reproduce constraining social conditions. Inflected by the author's own experience of separation and single motherhood during her fieldwork, Daughters of Parvati urges us to think about the ways women bear the consequences of the vulnerabilities of love and family in their minds, bodies, and social worlds.

In this account of an anthropologist's journey into Indian psychiatry wards, among women with mental illnesses and the loved ones who care for them, Sarah Pinto responds to ethical crises in caregiving with attention to culture, gender, and the globalized worlds of Indian women. In this account of an anthropologist's journey into Indian psychiatry wards, among women with mental illnesses and the loved ones who care for them, Sarah Pinto responds to ethical crises in caregiving with attention to culture, gender, and the globalized worlds of Indian women. Cover 1 Contents 8 Note on Transliterations 10 Introduction: Love and Affliction 12 1. Rehabilitating Ammi 50 2. On Dissolution 89 3. Moksha and Mishappenings 128 4. On Dissociation 164 5. Making a Case 210 6. Ethics of Dissolution 249 Bibliography 274 Index 284 A 284 B 284 C 284 D 285 E 286 F 286 G 286 H 286 I 287 J 287 K 287 L 288 M 288 N 289 O 289 P 289 R 290 S 290 T 291 U 291 V 291 W 291 Y 291 Z 291 Acknowledgments 292