Medicalization in Nepal (Illness Behavior in a Developing Country.)

With the modernization of developing societies, scholars, academics, and activists are concerned about the effects of Westernization and how people in these societies see the world and develop a sense of meaning in light of the rapid and often broad-sweeping social and cultural changes. As nonindustrial societies adopt the artifacts and systems characteristic of Western cultures, concerns have been raised regarding their impact on the consciousness, perceptions, and ideologies of people in these societies. In this regard, it is important to consider how the introduction of Western technologies, taste expressions (e.g., music), and social organizations (e.g., bureaucratic organization) influence people's consciousness, and their sense of themselves.
Modernization is framed, typically, in terms of the increasing rationalization of traditional cultures. Whereas traditional cultures generally orient meaning through religion, myth, and traditional value-based knowledge, Western cultures are more likely to require knowledge to be justified in terms of principles, procedures, and outcomes within the context of bureaucratic organization, scientific logic, and goal-based achievement. Social systems and behavior in developing countries are often transformed by the application of rational designs that are introduced by Western-oriented agencies. As a society follows a rationalized model for development, there is a general tendency for all institutions, and most areas of life, to be affected.
One important issue of Western rationalization concerns the possible changes to the process of serf-definition, defining one's self from the perspective of the traditional culture in which one was born versus a perspective influenced by Western ideas and values. Although there is considerable variation, the non-Western notion of sense of self is generally rooted in a higher degree of embeddedness of the self in society.