Domestic Moods: Maternal Mental Health in Northern Vietnam

In this article I propose the notion of domestic mood as an important concept for mental health research. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted among women living in Hanoi, Vietnam, I explore the maternal mental health problems that the women reported, focusing particularly on the household te...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Medical anthropology 2018-10, Vol.37 (7), p.582-596
Main Author: Gammeltoft, Tine M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
depression
distress
Emotions
family
Health problems
Health status
Heidegger
Husbands
kinship
Maternal characteristics
Medical research
Mental disorders
Mental health
moods
Mothers
Pregnancy
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Summary:In this article I propose the notion of domestic mood as an important concept for mental health research. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted among women living in Hanoi, Vietnam, I explore the maternal mental health problems that the women reported, focusing particularly on the household tensions and conflicts that made the entry into motherhood a distressful experience. To develop the concept of domestic mood, I draw on Martin Heidegger's work, particularly his claim that human being is always a being-with. Comprehending maternal mental health problems, I argue, requires that we pay attention not only to individual states of mind, but also to the ways that domestic environments shape people's moods. Taking this analytical approach, I show how the mental health states of pregnant women and new mothers in Vietnam were inseparable from their husbands' structural vulnerabilities within kin groups.
ISSN:0145-9740
1545-5882
DOI:10.1080/01459740.2018.1444612