Psychiatry, Post-Apartheid Integration and the Neglected Role of Language in South African Institutional Contexts

Abstract

This study examined the use of interpreters with patients who are speakers of African languages at a recently integrated psychiatric institution in post-apartheid South Africa. The research process itself reflected important aspects of the institutional dynamics around the issues of language and ethnicity. The impact of inadequate language resources on service provision was profound. Interpreters have a role in alleviating the difficulties described, but routine organizational strategies for managing speakers of African languages are powerful obstacles to change. Complex institutional and societal discourses to do with race, identity, community, alienation and the practice of public psychiatry constellate around the language issue. Without sufficient recognition of the centrality of language in service provision, integration and institutional transformation will be impeded.