This dissertation looks at \"specialized\" mental healthcare expertise in France as a lens through which to address the institutional management and representations of cultural difference in France today. By \"specialized\" mental healthcare centers, I refer structures that provide culturally-sensitive mental health services to immigrants specifically. I identify and explore three contemporary expert approaches: namely, transcultural psychiatry, clinical medical anthropology, and ethnoclinical mediation. By providing a genealogy of specialized mental healthcare institutions, and by construing them as \"meta-discursive nodes\"--that is, as points of encounter between state, institutional, and individual ideologies--I provide an analysis of the cultural anxieties, contradictions and double-binds that arise from the opposition between a regulative, universalist republican ideology, and a field of expertise which strives to promote culturally-sensitive mental healthcare for immigrants. I argue that, as a product of the conflation of the \"immigrant issue\": la question immigrée) and the \"social issue\": la question sociale), \"immigrant suffering\": Sayad, 2004) has become a medium that problematically couches immigrants' \"difficulties\"-- whether they relate to mental health pathology or structural problems--in terms of cultural difference. As a result, generic cultural representations of immigrants are uncritically reproduced, making it difficult to identify and address the structural inequalities that do engender suffering.
","abstract_html":"<p>This dissertation looks at "specialized" mental healthcare expertise in France as a lens through which to address the institutional management and representations of cultural difference in France today. By "specialized" mental healthcare centers, I refer structures that provide culturally-sensitive mental health services to immigrants specifically. I identify and explore three contemporary expert approaches: namely, transcultural psychiatry, clinical medical anthropology, and ethnoclinical mediation. By providing a genealogy of specialized mental healthcare institutions, and by construing them as "meta-discursive nodes"--that is, as points of encounter between state, institutional, and individual ideologies--I provide an analysis of the cultural anxieties, contradictions and double-binds that arise from the opposition between a regulative, universalist republican ideology, and a field of expertise which strives to promote culturally-sensitive mental healthcare for immigrants. I argue that, as a product of the conflation of the "immigrant issue": la question immigr├⌐e) and the "social issue": la question sociale), "immigrant suffering": Sayad, 2004) has become a medium that problematically couches immigrants' "difficulties"-- whether they relate to mental health pathology or structural problems--in terms of cultural difference. As a result, generic cultural representations of immigrants are uncritically reproduced, making it difficult to identify and address the structural inequalities that do engender suffering.</p>","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Larchanché, Stéphanie"],"institution":null,"degree_name":"Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"Anthropology","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Carolyn Sargent"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2010,"date_issued":"2010-01-01T08:00:00Z","date_published":"2010-01-01T08:00:00Z","updated_at":"2026-07-24T06:12:01Z","subjects":["Anthropology","Medical and Forensic","Cultural","Cultural Competence","Discrimination","France","Immigration","Mental Health","Social Suffering"],"languages":["English (en)"],"rights":[],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier.doi","label":"DOI","values":["https://doi.org/10.7936/K7VH5KTV"],"render_values":[{"text":"https://doi.org/10.7936/K7VH5KTV","href":"https://doi.org/10.7936/K7VH5KTV","code":true}]}]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/etd/193","outbound_label":"Repository record","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Carolyn Sargent"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Larchanché, Stéphanie"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.available","label":"Dc Date Available","values":["2018-04-04T07:00:00Z"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Anthropology"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Anthropology","Medical and Forensic","Cultural","Cultural Competence","Discrimination","France","Immigration","Mental Health","Social Suffering"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["English (en)"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/etd/193"]},{"key":"dc:identifier.doi","label":"DOI","values":["https://doi.org/10.7936/K7VH5KTV"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["This dissertation looks at \"specialized\" mental healthcare expertise in France as a lens through which to address the institutional management and representations of cultural difference in France today. By \"specialized\" mental healthcare centers, I refer structures that provide culturally-sensitive mental health services to immigrants specifically. I identify and explore three contemporary expert approaches: namely, transcultural psychiatry, clinical medical anthropology, and ethnoclinical mediation. By providing a genealogy of specialized mental healthcare institutions, and by construing them as \"meta-discursive nodes\"--that is, as points of encounter between state, institutional, and individual ideologies--I provide an analysis of the cultural anxieties, contradictions and double-binds that arise from the opposition between a regulative, universalist republican ideology, and a field of expertise which strives to promote culturally-sensitive mental healthcare for immigrants. I argue that, as a product of the conflation of the \"immigrant issue\": la question immigr├⌐e) and the \"social issue\": la question sociale), \"immigrant suffering\": Sayad, 2004) has become a medium that problematically couches immigrants' \"difficulties\"-- whether they relate to mental health pathology or structural problems--in terms of cultural difference. As a result, generic cultural representations of immigrants are uncritically reproduced, making it difficult to identify and address the structural inequalities that do engender suffering.
"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Cultural Anxieties and Institutional Regulation: \"Specialized\" Mental Healthcare and \"Immigrant Suffering\" in Paris, France"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Carolyn Sargent"],"dc:creator":["Larchanché, Stéphanie"],"dc:date.available":["2018-04-04T07:00:00Z"],"dc:description.abstract":["This dissertation looks at \"specialized\" mental healthcare expertise in France as a lens through which to address the institutional management and representations of cultural difference in France today. By \"specialized\" mental healthcare centers, I refer structures that provide culturally-sensitive mental health services to immigrants specifically. I identify and explore three contemporary expert approaches: namely, transcultural psychiatry, clinical medical anthropology, and ethnoclinical mediation. By providing a genealogy of specialized mental healthcare institutions, and by construing them as \"meta-discursive nodes\"--that is, as points of encounter between state, institutional, and individual ideologies--I provide an analysis of the cultural anxieties, contradictions and double-binds that arise from the opposition between a regulative, universalist republican ideology, and a field of expertise which strives to promote culturally-sensitive mental healthcare for immigrants. I argue that, as a product of the conflation of the \"immigrant issue\": la question immigr├⌐e) and the \"social issue\": la question sociale), \"immigrant suffering\": Sayad, 2004) has become a medium that problematically couches immigrants' \"difficulties\"-- whether they relate to mental health pathology or structural problems--in terms of cultural difference. As a result, generic cultural representations of immigrants are uncritically reproduced, making it difficult to identify and address the structural inequalities that do engender suffering.
"],"dc:identifier":["https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/etd/193"],"dc:identifier.doi":["https://doi.org/10.7936/K7VH5KTV"],"dc:language":["English (en)"],"dc:subject":["Anthropology","Medical and Forensic","Cultural","Cultural Competence","Discrimination","France","Immigration","Mental Health","Social Suffering"],"dc:title":["Cultural Anxieties and Institutional Regulation: \"Specialized\" Mental Healthcare and \"Immigrant Suffering\" in Paris, France"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Anthropology"],"thesis:degree_level":["Dissertation"],"thesis:degree_name":["Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-24T06:12:01Z"}