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The notion of culture in psychiatry in South Africa is chang ing. Cultural relativism was used as a justification for oppression by the previous regime, with some researchers therefore de-emphasising difference. Currently interest in di versity is growing. The racial integration of services poses challenges for culturally appropriate care. Community-based care, apparently a way of meeting challenges of cultural differ ence, presents other difficulties. There has been uneven development in understanding indigenous healing in South Africa, a factor which may be explained partly by continuing ideological tensions. Debates in transcultural psychiatry can contribute broadly to the challenge of nation-building.
Leslie Swartz (Sat,) studied this question.