Wèrè and the Ontological Politics of Global Mental Health: Distributed Cognition in Yorùbá Traditional Medicine.
Obafemi Jegede
Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry May 27, 2026 DOI: 10.1007/s11013-026-09992-1 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Ethnographic study Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | Traditional healers in southwestern Nigeria |
| Duration | Twenty years |
| Keywords | Decolonial epistemology Distributed cognition Ecological ontology Global mental health Nigeria Wèrè Yorùbá traditional medicine |
| Key findings | Replacing the Yorùbá diagnostic category wèrè with neuropsychiatric frameworks imposes personalistic ontology where ecological-cosmological ontology operates, constituting epistemic violence. |
Abstract
Global mental health initiatives increasingly replace indigenous diagnostic categories with neuropsychiatric frameworks, framing this as anti-stigma progress. Drawing on twenty years of ethnographic research with traditional healers in southwestern Nigeria and my position as both researcher and practitioner, this paper examines wèrè-the Yorùbá term for mental illness-to reveal fundamental ontological incommensurability between Western personalistic medicine and Yorùbá ecological-cosmological healing. Through linguistic analysis, micro-phenomenological interviews, and participant observation, I demonstrate that wèrè (wé = weave; ìrè = misery) diagnoses not individual brain dysfunction but unraveling of interconnections across bodily, environmental, ancestral, and spiritual domains. Yorùbá language grammatically locates cognitive processes beyond the brain-fear in chest (ayá), happiness in stomach (inú), focus in liver (ẹ̀dọ̀)-while recognizing environmental agents (rivers, trees, earth) as cognitive beings with agency requiring ritual attention. Therapeutic protocols operationalize "totalness" (gbogbo àyè), addressing not only persons but ecological-cosmological fields where disequilibrium occurs. Replacing wèrè with àrún ọpọ̀lọ (brain illness) constitutes epistemic violence, imposing personalistic ontology where ecological-cosmological ontology operates. Global mental health must recognize ontological pluralism: multiple valid healing sciences operating in incommensurable realities.