The bird dancer and the warrior king: Divergent lived experiences of Tourette syndrome in Bali

Abstract

In the past two decades, ethnographic, epidemiological and interdisciplinary research has robustly established that culture is significant in determining the long-term outcomes of people with neurodevelopmental, neuropsychiatric and mood disorders. Yet these cultural factors are certainly not uniform across discrete individual experiences. Thus, in addition to illustrating meaningful differences for people with neuropsychiatric disorder between different cultures, ethnography should also help detail the variations within a culture. Different subjective experiences or outcomes are not solely due to biographical idiosyncrasies—rather, influential factors arising from the same culture can have different impacts on different people. When taking a holistic and intersectional perspective on lived experience, it is crucial to understand the interaction of these factors for people with neuropsychiatric disorders. This paper teases apart such interactions, utilizing comparative case studies of the disparate subjective experiences and illness trajectories of two Balinese people with Tourette syndrome who exhibit similar symptoms. Based on longitudinal person-centered ethnography integrating clinical, psychological, and visual anthropology, this intersectional approach goes beyond symptom interpretation and treatment modalities to identify gendered embodiment and marital practices as influenced by caste to be significant determinants in subjective experience and long-term outcome.