Exploring transnational healing in relation to mental health: some evidence on Wolof and Lébou Senegalese migrants

A rich literature has highlighted that, besides being exposed to multiple mental health risk factors related to pre-migration, migration and post-migration experiences, asylum seekers, refugees and migrants face significant difficulties in accessing information, healthcare services and medical care. More specifically, barriers to mental health care include marginalization and discrimination in receiving contexts, difference in language, lack of awareness about the incidence of culture on illness experiences, and fear of stigmatization. When confronted with neglected health needs and specific cultural perceptions of mental illness, migrants might turn to alternative healing practices stretching across borders (Tiilikainen, 2012; Tiilikainen, Koehn, 2011). This paper aims at deepening existing qualitative knowledge on how migrant populations respond to mental health disorders and illness experiences in migration contexts by engaging in transnational settings. By focusing on Senegalese migrants belonging to the Wolof and Lébou ethnic groups, this paper explores how migrants’ behaviours and health-seeking strategies in relation to mental health and healing are transnationally shaped. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in northern Italy in 2020 with Wolof and Lébou migrants who experienced mental health issues, this study shows the importance of transnational ties in providing access to multiple resources - i.e. advice, information, treatments and traditional medicines - and the relevance of migrants’, healers’ and therapeutic materials’ cross-border mobility, shedding light on how a transnational perspective contributes to a better understanding of mental health-related phenomena among migrant populations.