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The Social Ecology of Resilience pp 369–386Cite as

Understanding Culture, Resilience, and Mental Health: The Production of Hope

Abstract

The authors report on their multidisciplinary and longitudinal studies of Afghan families that included paired interviews with adolescents and adult caregivers. The authors argue that cultural values are the “bedrock” of resilience: they underpin the meaning attributed to great suffering, hope for the future, and a sense of emotional, social, and moral order to ordinary and extraordinary aspects of life. Remarkably, they show that war-related trauma is not the principal driver of poor mental health: traumatic experiences are linked to fractured family relationships and a failure to achieve personal, social, and cultural milestones. Resilience, meanwhile, rests upon a demonstration of family unity. In the context of structural disadvantage that includes poverty, crowded living conditions, and exposure to violence, the authors also show that cultural dictates come to entrap Afghans in the pursuit of honor and respectability, a core facet of psychosocial resilience. The chapter highlights linkages between psychosocial and structural resilience, cautioning against a simplistic view of culture as a set of protective resources. The authors discuss the ramifications of social policies that raise not just hope, but undue expectations without sufficient resource provision.

Keywords

  • Mental Health
  • Child Mental Health
  • Political Violence
  • Resource Provision
  • Social Ecology

These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anthropology and Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, Yale University, New Haven, CT, 06511, USA

    Catherine Panter-Brick

  2. Macmillan Center for International and Area Studies, Yale University, New Haven, CT, 06520, USA

    Mark Eggerman

Authors
  1. Catherine Panter-Brick
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  2. Mark Eggerman
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Catherine Panter-Brick .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Social Work, Dalhousie University, Coburg Road 6414, Halifax, B3H 2A7, Nova Scotia, Canada

    Michael Ungar

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Panter-Brick, C., Eggerman, M. (2012). Understanding Culture, Resilience, and Mental Health: The Production of Hope. In: Ungar, M. (eds) The Social Ecology of Resilience. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-0586-3_29

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