Latah in South-East Asia The History and Ethnography of a Culture-Bound Syndrome |
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| Author:
| Winzeler, Robert L. |
| Contribution by:
| Quinn, Naomi
Fessler, Daniel
Johnson, Allen W.
Lebra, Takie Sugiyama
Lucy, John
Strauss, Claudia
Whitehead, Harriet |
| Series title: | Publications of the Society for Psychological Anthropology Ser. |
| ISBN: | 978-0-521-03137-0 |
| Publication Date: | Jun 2008 |
| Publisher: | Cambridge University Press
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| Book Format: | Paperback |
| List Price: | AUD $43.95 |
Book Description:
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Latah, the Malayan hyperstartle pattern, has fascinated Western observers since the late nineteenth century and is widely regarded as a 'culture-bound syndrome'. Dr Winzeler critically reviews the literature on the subject, and presents new ethnographic information based on his own fieldwork in Malaya and Borneo. He considers the biological and psychological hypotheses that have been proposed to account for latah, and explains the ways in which local people understand it. Arguing that...
More DescriptionLatah, the Malayan hyperstartle pattern, has fascinated Western observers since the late nineteenth century and is widely regarded as a 'culture-bound syndrome'. Dr Winzeler critically reviews the literature on the subject, and presents new ethnographic information based on his own fieldwork in Malaya and Borneo. He considers the biological and psychological hypotheses that have been proposed to account for latah, and explains the ways in which local people understand it. Arguing that latah has specific social functions, he concludes that it should not be treated as an 'illness' or 'syndrome'.