Struggling Along in Nigeria: Depression, Treatment, and Morality

Abstract

In this article, we analyze the multiple ways of moral being with depression in urban Nigeria, including those of the ethnographer. This approach fits recent theorizing in moral anthropology and mental health that aims at uncovering how mental illness and ethical being come into being in between patients and meaningful others. We argue that the Nigerian experience of depression does not follow the Heideggerian model of moral breakdown and ethical performance but is rather a shared experience of struggling along without the ideal of a full recovery. By proposing a radical reconsideration of existing care models that are largely based on cure and correction, struggling along draws attention to the unfinishedness of depression. This is best described as a heightened everyday awareness that lingers in between reflective and unreflective modes of being that comprise both the physical and metaphysical worlds young Nigerians inhabit and allows for moral being with mental health struggles.