Himalayan Laboratory: Nepal and the Emergence of Global Mental Health

• In Event: Embodied Narratives of Health, Self, Care, and Knowledge

Abstract

In this paper, I trace a genealogy of mental health governance in Nepal and the rise of Nepali NGOs for mental health and counseling as it was constituted in and through an assemblage (Ong and Collier 2005) of historical events, local politics, personal relationships and trends in the field of global health development. I argue that Nepal has figured as an important site in the production of knowledge for the rapidly expanding field of global mental health, providing data, case studies, and evidence, and serving as a node through which key actors within the network of global mental health have circulated.

Author

• Aidan Seale-Feldman, University of Virginia