ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with some fundamental issues in transcultural psychiatry. These are to do with the definition of the subject, its uses or functions, and its rapid growth as a specialty within psychiatry. In dealing with these issues, the chapter assumes a critical position in relation to much of what is generally considered to fall within the concerns of transcultural psychiatry. Very few people have attempted to define or specify what transcultural psychiatry is about. Although there is some agreement on what the subject matter of transcultural psychiatry should be, the boundaries that exist, which demarcate transcultural psychiatry from psychiatry in general, are often vaguely drawn and cover a variety of terrains. Psychiatry in the form of transculturalism has proved to be a useful professional ally in providing new descriptions and explanations which have given a spurious scientific credibility to this racist ideology.
