Stressed,depressed, or bewitched?

Mental illness is an important cause of disability in sub-Saharan African countries and is rarely covered in health-related development activity. This article examines the close relationship between mental illness, religion, and culture, referring to the authors' experiences in Zimbabwe as an example. They emphasise the importance of gaining a sympathetic understanding of the religious beliefs and social contexts of psycho-social distress states, rather than simply translating concepts and ideas developed in the societies of Europe and North America.     

Academic-community collaboration,gender research,and development: pitfalls and possibilities

Collaboration has become a watchword for development practitioners and theorists. Yet collaboration or partnerships between academics and community-based researchers and activists have often proved difficult. This is particularly true for partnerships with smaller, grassroots community researchers, who are generally less resourced than their academic partners. This paper focuses on such partnerships in gender research, with the aim of reflecting on past problems as well as successes in order to develop strategies for making such projects more truly collaborative, rather than a minefield of broken promises and unspoken (and sometimes spoken) resentments.     

Advocating Democracy: The Role of Lawyers in Taiwan's Political Transformation

Litigation hm not been a significant strategy in Taiwan for chauenging injustice due to the use of the Civil Law tradition as a model for the Republic of China legal system and the diminished autonomy of the ROC legal profession and legal system under martial law and authoritarian rule. Individual lawyers, however, were amang the leading proponents of reform during Taiwan's recent transition to democratic rule. Furthermore, one of the significant liberaliring refonnr ushered in by the democratic transition has been the reform of the ROC legal profession. We examine the contribution of some lawyers to democratization and consider what role the reconstituted ROC legal profession may play in the political economy of Taiwan in the future.     

Book Reviews

Book Review in This Article:
L aw and E thics in the P ractice of P sychiatry . Edited by Charles K. Hofling, M.D.
M ale P ractice : H ow D octors M anipulate W omen . By Robert S. Mendelsohn, M.D.
N urse P ower . By Karen O'Rourke and Salley Barton     

Cracking Through Hegemonic Ideology: The Logic of Formal Justice

In this analysis I argue for the independent effects on social change of the internal logic of formal justice. Institutionally, oppositional ideas that challenge the legitimacy of a hegemonic system emerge in “safe spaces” that subordinate groups create within a culture dominated by hegemonic ideas. The oppositional ideas derive in part from an existing informal culture of opposition, access to repertories of contention, and favorable openings in the political system. In addition, however, these ideas are often propelled independently by the logic of formal justice, in which, when the reasons for separate treatment have been discredited, equality is the default option. The analysis demonstrates the power of this logic and suggests that it spreads through the mechanism of “organized activist” variation and “everyday activist” selection.