"Culture counts" has long been a rallying cry among health advocates and policymakers concerned with racial disparities in health care. A generation ago, the women's health movement led to a host of changes that also benefited racial minorities, including more culturally aware medical staff, enhanced health education, and the mandated inclusion of women and minorities in federally funded research. Many health professionals would now agree that cultural competence is important in clinical settings, but in what ways? Shattering Culture provides an insightful view of medicine and psychiatry as they are practiced in today's culturally diverse clinical settings. The book offers a compelling account of the many ways culture shapes how doctors conduct their practices and how patients feel about the care they receive. Based on interviews with clinicians, health care staff, and patients, Shattering Culture shows the human face of health care in America. Building on over a decade of research led by Mary-Jo Good, the book delves into the cultural backgrounds of patients and their health care providers, as well as the institutional cultures of clinical settings, to illuminate how these many cultures interact and shape the quality of patient care. Sarah Willen explores the controversial practice of matching doctors and patients based on a shared race, ethnicity, or language and finds a spectrum of arguments challenging its usefulness, including patients who may fear being judged negatively by providers from the same culture. Seth Hannah introduces the concept of cultural environments of hyperdiversity describing complex cultural identities. Antonio Bullon and Mary-Jo Good demonstrate how regulations meant to standardize the caregiving process—such as the use of templates and check boxes instead of narrative notes—have steadily limited clinician flexibility, autonomy, and the time they can dedicate to caring for patients. Elizabeth Carpenter-Song looks at positive doctor-patient relationships in mental health care settings and finds that the most successful of these are based on mutual "recognition"—patients who can express their concerns and clinicians who validate them. In the book's final essay, Hannah, Good, and Park show how navigating the maze of insurance regulations, financial arrangements, and paperwork compromises the effectiveness of mental health professionals seeking to provide quality care to minority and poor patients. Rapidly increasing diversity on one hand and bureaucratic regulations on the other are two realities that have made providing culturally sensitive care even more challenging for doctors. Few opportunities exist to go inside the world of medical and mental health clinics and see how these realities are influencing patient care. Shattering Culture provides a rare look at the day-to-day experiences of psychiatrists and other clinicians and offers multiple perspectives on what culture means to doctors, staff, and patients and how it shapes the practice of medicine and psychiatry.

The thoroughly revised and updated second edition of the Routledge Handbook of Cultural Sociology provides an unparalleled overview of sociological and related scholarship on the complex relations of culture to social structures and everyday life. With 70 essays written by scholars from around the world, the book brings diverse approaches into dialogue, charting new pathways for understanding culture in our global era. Short, accessible chapters by contributing authors address classic questions, emergent issues, and new scholarship on topics ranging from cultural and social theory to politics and the state, social stratification, identity, community, aesthetics, and social and cultural movements. In addition, contributors explore developments central to the constitution and reproduction of culture, such as power, technology, and the organization of work. This handbook is essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students interested in a wide range of subfields within sociology, as well as cultural studies, media and communication, and postcolonial theory.

In this groundbreaking study based on five years of in-depth ethnographic and interdisciplinary research, Troubled in the Land of Enchantment explores the well-being of adolescents hospitalized for psychiatric care in New Mexico. Anthropologists Janis H. Jenkins and Thomas J. Csordas present a gripping picture of psychic distress, familial turmoil, and treatment under the regime of managed care that dominates the mental health care system. The authors make the case for the centrality of struggle in the lives of youth across an array of extraordinary conditions, characterized by personal anguish and structural violence. Critical to the analysis is the cultural phenomenology of existence disclosed through shifting narrative accounts by youth and their families as they grapple with psychiatric diagnosis, poverty, misogyny, and stigma in their trajectories through multiple forms of harm and sites of care. Jenkins and Csordas compellingly direct our attention to the conjunction of lived experience, institutional power, and the very possibility of having a life.

Jesus and the Culture Wars: Reclaiming the Lord's Prayer is an in-depth look at the cultural unrest of Christ's time and now. From the radical feminization of our nation's boys to unholy alliances with militant Islam, American mainline denominations are leading the charge. They aren't the only ones on the wrong side of the culture wars, though. So were the Pharisees. What does it really mean to pray with Jesus 'Hallowed be Thy Name' or 'Lead Us not into Temptation' in a religious context as politically charged as the one we face today? Jesus and the Culture Wars offers a fresh perspective on the Lord's Prayer and a call to Christians everywhere to reclaim it from the religious authorities who have taken it hostage. Visit www.revcjconner.com to talk about Jesus and the Culture Wars 'Nothing could be more counter-cultural, and therefore imperative, than unwrapping each petition of the Lord's Prayer, one of the most powerful weapons in the Christian arsenal against post-modern and other errors. CJ Conner has accomplished this feat admirably.' Dr. Uwe Siemon-Netto, Ph.D., D.Litt. Concordia Seminary Institute on Lay Vocation, St. Louis

Drawing upon thirty years work which took him to Madagascar, New Hebrides, Australia and New Caledonia, Joel Bonnemaison's work presents an original and refreshing alternative to the more traditional Anglo-American approach to cultural geography. Bonnemaison provides a true kind of anthro-geography as he explores questions around the geography of culture and the anthropology of space. With an introduction by John Agnew, Department Chair, Dept. of Geography, UCLA. 'Bonnemaison's perspective is infinitely more interesting than most Anglo-American cultural geography.' - Professor Mike Hefferman, University of Nottingham 'A very stimulating introduction to cultural geography.' - Professor Paul Claval 'The translation into English of Joel Bonnemaison's "La Geographie Culturelle" is a major event. In this gem of a book, Bonnemaison makes a powerful case for an entirely new form of cultural geography that helps us make sense of both Western and non-Western societies.' - Mike Heffernan, Nottingham University.

Seventeen-year-old Keri likes to plan for every possibility. She knows what to do if you break an arm, or get caught in an earthquake or fire. But she wasn't prepared for her brother's suicide, and his death has left her shattered with grief. When her childhood friend Janna tells her it was murder, not suicide, Keri wants to believe her. After all, Janna's brother died under similar circumstances years ago, and Janna insists a visiting tourist, Sione, who also lost a brother to apparent suicide that year, has helped her find some answers. As the three dig deeper, disturbing facts begin to pile up: one boy killed every year; all older brothers; all had spent New Year's Eve in the idyllic town of Summerton. But when their search for the serial killer takes an unexpected turn, suspicion is cast on those they trust the most. As secrets shatter around them, can they save the next victim? Or will they become victims themselves?

DSM-5® Handbook of the Cultural Formulation Interview provides the background, context, and detailed guidance necessary to train clinicians in the use of the Cultural Formulation Interview (CFI), which was created as part of the 2007-2013 DSM revision process. The purpose of the CFI -- and this unique handbook -- is to make it easier for providers to account for the influence of culture in their clinical work to enhance patient-clinician communication and improve outcomes. Cultural psychiatry as a field has evolved enormously from the days when it was principally concerned with epidemiological and clinical studies of disease prevalence; it now examines a multitude of issues, primary among them the differing patient, family, and practitioner models of illness and treatment experiences within and across cultures. The editors, all of whom have been intimately involved in the evolution of the field, have designed the book and accompanying videos for maximum instructional and clinical utility. The Handbook boasts many strengths and useful features, including: A detailed description of each of the three CFI components: a core 16-item questionnaire, which can be applied in any clinical setting with any patient by any mental health clinician; an informant version of the core CFI used to obtain information from caregivers; and 12 supplementary modules that expand on these basic assessments. This material facilitates implementation of the CFI by clinicians. Over a dozen clinical vignettes are included to illustrate use of the three components, and the Handbook also includes multiple videos that demonstrate the application of portions of the core CFI, and several supplementary modules. Strategies for incorporating the CFI into clinical training are identified and discussed, furthering the objective of developing culturally-sensitive and astute practitioners. The theoretical bases of the CFI are explored, raising questions for discussion and identifying areas for further research. The CFI is a valuable tool for all patients, not just those judged to be culturally different. The CFI has been called the single most practically useful contribution of cultural psychiatry and medical anthropology to clinical psychiatry, primary care, and medicine in general. DSM-5® Handbook on the Cultural Formulation Interview is the only book on the market that equips readers with the skills and insight to incorporate the CFI into practice, making it a critically important addition to the clinical literature.