Paper short abstract:

In this presentation, we will address challenges using a series of methodological instruments designed to approach the relation between mental health and violence from the actor's perspective. The reflection arises from the ethnographic work with immigrant women who developed depression in the US.

Paper long abstract:

Given the eruption of violence in the daily lives of social groups, ethnographers have to deal with new challenges. In this presentation, we will address a series of methodological instruments designed to approach the relation between mental health and violence from the actor's perspective. The reflection arises from the ethnographic work carried out with immigrant women of Mexican origin who developed problems of depression in New York City. In it, we explore, through therapeutic itineraries and care trajectories, a series of material and legal factors and family violence, which framed the depressive episodes of these women. The following questions arose in the use of these instruments, as well as in the interpretation and analysis of the data: in the structured interview script, how can we stop giving linearity to the stories that present various paths and various aspects linked to depressive episodes? During the interview, in which the interviewee chooses what to tell and what to omit in their personal history, how do we introduce other dimensions that the researcher observes and considers important in the subject's personal history? How to represent an actor when he positions himself as a victim within a field of hegemony and subaltern relations, in which violence is relational? We consider it important through this paper to reflect on the design of instruments for obtaining information and analysis on the presentation and representation of those actors who have been under environments of exploitation, physical or sexual violence, and discrimination.