Paper
Intersectionality and the socio-cultural determinants of mental health: ethnographical cases in Ecuador
presenters
PATRICIO TRUJILLO
Nationality: Ecuador
Residence: ECUADOR
Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador
Presence:Face to Face/ On Site
In 1989, Columbia University professor Kimberlé Crenshaw proposed using the concept of intersectionality to reveal how race-ethnicity, class, and gender can intersect to generate varying degrees of space, division, inequality, and inequity among social groups. In health research, this concept has become widely used as it helps to highlight the discrimination that less privileged groups may face, such as differences in attention within medical and healthcare systems for racialized and impoverished women.
The scientific journal The Lancet, in 2022, produced a special issue on the importance of the concept of intersectionality: "Given the pervasive nature of racism, xenophobia, and other forms of discrimination, it should be no surprise that they are fundamental determinants of health," and how this helps to understand the problem of inequity among human groups and its impact on well-being and mental health, as the inequalities produced are often not adequately addressed or understood by official healthcare systems: "Discrimination occurs everywhere, adversely affecting mental and physical health across all ages, contributing to health inequities."
The case of a patient from the Kichwa people of Ecuador, hospitalized in a health center and treated as psychotic by the attending physicians because he tried to communicate in his mother tongue and express his ailments, which were not understood, is a revealing example of the lack of interest in understanding the dimensions of mental health in relation to race-ethnicity.
In Ecuador, despite the existence of regulations for the care, treatment, and prevention of mental health, the importance given to these serious conditions in urban-mestizo populations is still very limited and largely focused on addictions. However, little or nothing has been done regarding indigenous, Afro-Ecuadorian, and montubio peoples. It is important to note that the ethno-cultural composition of the country includes groups of recent contact, especially among Amazonian nationalities.
Keywords:
mental health, ethography, interculturality, Intersectionality