By Amadea Hofmann
We live in an increasingly data-driven world, where emphasis is often placed on the things that can be quantified: the state of the economy, coding languages, and algorithms, just to name a few.
Empirical pursuits – as opposed to the people-orientated social sciences – are often lauded as being the more “serious” and “demanding” disciplines. Commentators have long argued that there is a humanities crisis, as students are increasingly abandoning the social sciences in pursuit of better job prospects.
Dr Anjana Bala, an LSE Fellow in the Department of Anthropology, considers her profession in the social sciences worthwhile. Although she initially attained a degree in Biology, she found the empirical side of science to be “limiting.” So, she opted to pursue a Masters and PhD in Anthropology instead.
Dr Bala’s primary focus is the anthropology of mental health, which involves working with people who have been diagnosed with psychosis and schizophrenia. She describes their conditions as states in which “they don’t share the same sense of reality as those around them.” The individuals Dr Bala works with often have visual or auditory experiences, as well as altered recollections of the past.
It is a unique field of research because the subject matter is immaterial; the personal experiences of individuals cannot be quantified or generalised.
Consequently, there seems to be a dichotomy between the medical and anthropological understanding of psychosis and schizophrenia. Dr Bala says that “psychiatry tends to systematise [psychosis and schizophrenia] as delusion or hallucination, but my research focuses on how there might be a broader truth or reality … in the supposed delusion.”
In cases where a purely medical diagnosis seems unsatisfactory – that is, dismissing hallucinations as things that categorically do not exist – an anthropological approach allows Dr Bala to look further. She argues that, as an anthropologist, she can utilise “lived experience and narrative as forms of evidence.”
This sheds light on Dr Bala’s point about how the empirical sciences can be “limiting.” If we constrain ourselves to a data-driven, black-and-white approach, the conclusion is either that the hallucinations are real or that they aren’t.
In contrast, anthropologists emphasise the subtle nuances of personal experiences by sitting with individuals and listening to their stories. Although this methodology may be less exact, it can also produce more insightful conclusions.
The individuals’ hallucinations may not be fully grounded in reality, but Dr Bala’s research finds that there can often be a “message behind their psychosis about themselves or the world, how they understand social relations.”
“That which we assume is unreason,” she says, “can actually be a form of social critique.”
According to Dr Bala, the need for a more nuanced approach is not unique to her research. It could also ameliorate the ongoing mental health crisis, which is increasingly affecting young adults.
Dr Bala points out that “since the 80s there’s been hundreds of interventions on the most specific psychiatric drugs. You have really individualised medicines … countless scientific articles published … but we’re actually not any step closer to solving our mental health crisis.”
“Depression rates, anxiety rates are still skyrocketing despite the fact that we have all this quantifiable knowledge about the subject,” Dr Bala says. This suggests that the evidence-based approach alone is not enough. According to Dr Bala, scientists have been heavily reliant on methods that lead to tangible outcomes, but these outcomes aren’t solving the issues at hand.
“There is this drive for data and numbers and science and knowledge,” Dr Bala says. “But at the same time, we have all that knowledge but nothing is really quantifiably changing.”
Instead, she argues, we should turn to the humanities and social sciences to aid our understanding of mental health, as they “offer a different take on wellbeing which is rooted in ethical reflection … working with the person and individual histories can be of importance.”
Dr Bala adds that an anthropological lens could be applied to countless fields. Instead of it being an isolated subject that is only studied by a small fraction of students, it could form an instrumental part of most professionals’ educations.
If medical students were required to take an anthropology course during their studies on, for instance, how race and gender operate in the hospital, “they would approach the patient differently,” Dr Bala argues.
Similarly, if law students had to take a course exploring how the law can be “culturally subjective” and analysing the “racial and gendered politics” that shape the criminal justice system, they might practise law differently.
There is a tendency to shrug off the more theoretical considerations of our world and focus on data collection and black letter law. But we do not exist in a vacuum; countless immaterial factors affect our every action.
As Dr Bala notes, while “we have so much knowledge about the world,” we still need to enhance our “knowledge of the world, life, and existence.”
The world is not black-and-white, and neither should our methods of studying it be. Anthropology – and the social sciences and humanities more broadly – shine a light on all the shades of grey and remind us that there is value in the things that can’t be quantified.
In fact, the subjectivity of the social sciences and humanities – the same quality that attracts criticism – is what makes them indispensable. Their subjectivity allows us to tackle the questions that have no objective answers. Countless “insights of life can be gleaned from anthropology,” Dr Bala says.
The unquantifiable is important not despite us living in a data-driven world, but because of it. Only when we utilise both the empirical and social sciences can we truly make sense of our world.
Dr Bala observes that “at the end of the day, everyone has to endure life. Even if you have data and numbers, you still have to deal with things like pain, relationality, death.”
In her view, we need to ask ourselves: “How do we relate to each other and what are our ethics and how do we live?”
The social sciences, Dr Bala says, “are some sort of step closer to helping us deal with these questions.”
Illustration by Francesca Corno
