英文摘要 |
From the perspective of social suffering, the paper explores the correlation between the migration experience of the Tao aboriginal people on Taiwan's Orchid Island and their mental disorders examines the limits of the genetic approach to aboriginal health based on the biomedical model of medicine after the 1990s. The focus of the study is on the cases of mental disorder of young and adult generations, ranging from 25- to 60-year-old population. I argue that the prevalence of mental disorders among the Taos cannot be explained by any single factor, such as a genetic disorder. My fieldwork and a variety of documentation and statistical data show that the Taos' mental health conditions are shaped by their particular historical experience of interacting with the outside world. In almost all cases, people with the experience of migrating to Taiwan and their symptoms of mental disorders began in Taiwan instead of in their isle community. I argue that the fact that the Tao members of the 25-60 age group have to migrate back and forth between Taiwan and Orchid Island to pursue education and find jobs creates a significant state of anomie in their aboriginal society, which, in turn, is a consequence of this society's involvement in the development of modernity. Migrating to Taiwan, a Han-dominated society, atthe age of about 15 or 16 with little support from their families, they are prone to experiencing frustration. There is a close connection between their common frustrating experience of migration and the mental disorders prevailing among them. The physical and psychological traumas caused by the particular migration experience are not just individual experience. They represent the common dilemmas that those Tao members who receive modern education in the postwar period encounter. Under the siege of dramatic social change in the aboriginal society, they have no alternative but to leave their isle to make a living. Tao cultural traditions and their historical experience of interacting with the outside world, however, have intensified the traumas from which the migrating members suffer and contributed to the prevalence of mental disorders among them. |