Between Sakit and Schizophrenia in West Sumatra, Indonesia

This article explores one woman's life history of mental illness in West Sumatra, Indonesia, and the shifting explanatory narratives used over time by herself and her family to understand and manage this illness. For most of her adult life, Amak Dahniar has heard voices, which had been understood as an illness caused by harmful spiritual influences; later in life she received a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. Amak Dahniar's life story highlights the tensions between local understandings and methods of care and transnational psychiatric framings of mental illness.