Saints, Scholars and Schizophrenics: Mental Illness in Rural Ireland. Essay

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Pages: 10
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Samantha Jones
Professor Ford
Anthropology 103
30 November 2009

The people of Ballybran parish are located in southwest Kerry, which is in Ireland. All there is in this small rural county town is a school, chapel, cemetery, three pubs, some good shops, the forge, a guest house, two graveyards and three churches that are in ruins. (Scheper-hughes ,19) It is a small rural village and doesn’t have a lot of tutorist attractions. The people of Ballybran are very long, lean, and finally sculptured meaning in shape. (Scheper-hughes, 19) There have very fair skin. Much of what these people eat is from the sea. They also eat packaged good and canned goods from the local shops. These people are farmers they mostly grow potatoes and cabbage. …show more content…
(Scheper-hughes, 101) The view of sex is the same with any catholic group of people. You don’t have see until your married and you only do when wanting to have children. The highest status in Ballybran is have is that of purity. The sins lie when a couple has sex just for pleasure and not for trying to get pregnant. The women are not supposed to have sex with there husbands if they are using a condom. (Scheper-hughes, 120) As in any religious person who is catholic they knew that having sex just for pleasure is a waste of sperm and a waste of a person’s life. Also using birth control is not approved by the religion for it is stopping the cycle of life. It is also making it easier for people to have sex just for pleasure.
The separation of men and women are very prominent in the small town of Ballybran. In the house the women’s place is in the kitchen, and the men’s place is in the barn and the fields. Men mostly feel uncomfortable being in the kitchen and quickly eat so they can join their friends at the pubs. A division of the sexes is also big in the Sunday masses. Sitting during the mass is divided up in age, sex and marriage. Also during the mass only women are allowed to receive communion. The belief is in Ballybran that men bear more serious sin. Men are the ones who have bad thoughts such as sex, and masturbation. The men and woman don’t spend very much time together not even the ones that are married. The author
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Nancy Scheper-Hughes and the Question of Ethical Fieldwork Essay

In 1974, Nancy Scheper-Hughes traveled to a village in rural Ireland which she later nicknamed “Ballybran” (Scheper-Hughes 2000-128)). Her findings there led her to publish Saints, Scholars and Schizophrenics: Mental Illness in Rural Ireland in 1979, in which she attempted to explain the social causes of Ireland’s surprisingly high rates of schizophrenia (Scheper-Hughes 2000:128). Saints was met with a backlash of criticism from both the anthropological community and the villagers who had served…

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