HIGHER EARNINGS, BURSTING TRAINS AND EXHAUSTED BODIES - THE CREATION OF TRAVELING PSYCHOSIS IN POSTREFORM CHINA

This paper examines the biomedical construction of ''travelling psycho sis'' (TP), a contested psychiatric diagnosis pertaining to a severe m ental disturbance that occurs among migrant workers who travel long di stance in China's overcrowded trains. Although TP can produce substant ial psychiatric morbidity, it is also a socially constructed entity th at serves social uses. By subscribing to a ritualistic model of valida tion and by invoking the rhetoric of scientific authority, Chinese psy chiatrists who created TP have been able to accomplish such goals as l egitimating its forensic function, securing research Funds. enhancing their academic status and raising railway authorities' consciousness a bout passengers safety issues. But the ''biopsychosocial'' paradigm th ey espouse supplies only a parochial form of social analysis and a spu rious sense of comprehensiveness. By privileging proximate risk factor s, it fails to address the wider environment of the post-reform politi cal economy that ultimately governs population movement and put migran t workers at risk of health problems. This paper submits that a critic al examination of this sanitised biopsychosocial paradigm will enliven biomedical research as well as augment its impact on policy developme nt in China. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.