Mental Health and the Maintenance of Kinship in South Africa

At the turn of the millennium, people with mental disturbance often lived in circumstances of economic marginalization in South Africa. The historical material of one low-income urban area reveals the place of kin relations and reciprocity in enabling negotiation of a more fluid set of responses to mental illness. In this sociocultural context, stigma was not an inevitable reaction to mental illness, and a more complex set of social dynamics could mitigate marginalization. Research on how changing informal care practices relate to state-based community care continues to be important to inform contemporary health reforms.