Summary Of Nancy Scheper's 'Ballybran'

Nancy Scheper-Hughes paints a vivid picture of the village folk living in “Ballybran”, once vital, now desolate and isolated by lack of economic opportunity and diminishing population growth. As a psychological anthropologist, she seeks deeper answers, attempting to identify psychological and cultural root causes of anomie and despair in the people living in rural Ireland. She explains multiple reasons for both their anomie and extremely high rates of mental illness which lie in shrinking economic vitality, culture-bound systems of religious beliefs, folklore and perhaps more importantly, the effects of child-rearing practices. Young men are committed to carrying on the family farm and their name despite the downward spiraling farm economics in rural areas of Ireland like “Ballybran”. Reasons for the drop include resistance to adopt modernization, loyalty to traditional patterns of in-family cooperation, mistrust of non-kin farming cooperatives and lack of production consciousness. The later reveals the effects of the majority of farmers being life-long bachelors, families without children and those whose children emigrated to other countries or areas …show more content…
Generations of women have used the less is better theory toward handling their babies, do not socialize children until they become toddlers, and mother-baby bonding in infancy through breastfeeding is also rare. Myths and superstitions may be the root cause of why babies are kept isolated and out of harm’s (fairies) way. Irish Catholics strongly believe in original sin, humans are by nature sinful and sins of the flesh need to be curbed. Mothers tend to see a baby’s innate need to suck, be rocked and stroked as something to be curtailed. Physical punishment, even for minor offences begins at a young age and is acceptable and encouraged in school. The intended result being to instill fear of breaking norms and