In their recent article in The Australian Journal of Anthropology, Ira Parker Vaughan (2025) presents a rich ethnographic account of Anika and Milan that raises broader questions about how complex forms of suffering are recognised and interpreted. This commentary argues that the significance of Vaughan's article extends beyond the particulars of the case itself. Rather than treating Anika as a subject for retrospective psychiatric diagnosis, I suggest that the ethnography illustrates why certain forms of psychological distress resist easy categorisation within conventional clinical frameworks. Drawing on contemporary research into borderline personality disorder (BPD), I explore how phenomena commonly associated with borderline personality organisation (including affective instability, identity disturbance, rejection sensitivity, unstable interpersonal relationships, fluctuating caregiving behaviours, contradictory help-seeking, and oscillations between dependency and hostility) often emerge not as discrete symptoms but as relational patterns distributed across everyday life. Such patterns are difficult to recognise within the episodic and symptom-focused encounters that characterise much clinical practice, yet they become visible through the temporal depth and contextual richness of ethnographic observation. The value of Vaughan's account lies in demonstrating how behaviours that may appear fragmented, contradictory, or implausible in clinical settings become intelligible when situated within histories of trauma, caregiving, social obligation, and interpersonal relationships. The commentary argues that ethnography offers a valuable complement to psychiatry by revealing forms of distress that unfold between people rather than solely within individuals. More broadly, it asks what anthropology can teach clinicians about recognising disorders with defining features that are relational, developmental, and socially embedded.
Abstract Anthropology plays an integral role in human health, and while it has found a place in medicine, it has yet to secure a place by the chair in oral health and dentistry. Drawing on personal experience and existing and emerging scholarship, we highlight the limitations of current biomedical approaches to oral health, which often overlook the complex and diverse cultural history and social climate in Australia. We argue that integrating anthropology into oral health will improve oral health provision by providing a lens that supports holistic, relevant, patient‐centred care. The inclusion of anthropological approaches, such as ethnography and reflexivity, provides critical tools for examining the impact of factors such as Indigeneity, neoliberalism, cultural beliefs, sexuality, and socioeconomic status on oral health behaviours. Practical applications of anthropology in oral health are explored, including suggestions surrounding co‐design, policy reform, implementation, and education. Simultaneously, the role of anthropology in addressing systemic and structural barriers to oral health care in Australia is discussed. We conclude by discussing a reimagined Australian oral health care in which a paradigm shift can move beyond a reductionist framework and prioritise individuality, culture, and trust‐building, enabling a holistic future for oral health and dentistry.
How processes entailed in accessing benefits are implemented in the early stages of a resource project shapes brokerage throughout the project's lifespan. Perceptions of the efficacy of these processes and of the individuals involved often vary. Where the desires of host communities are raised and then left unfulfilled by the process, the ensuing deep sense of loss and betrayal may give rise to the emergence of a new wave of brokers. This paper explores these dynamics in the context of the early phase of a resource project in Papua New Guinea (PNG), focusing on the Social Mapping and Landowner Identification Study (SMLIS) and Landowner Beneficiary Identification (LOBID): formal processes that precede the development of petroleum projects under PNG law. We document some of the responses of local community members within the project area towards the SMLIS and LOBID processes, and how that has shaped and influenced the rise of a new wave of brokers. The paper reflects, too, on the first author's own changing role as a broker in this scene, based on shifting demand for different types of brokerage.
Recent efforts to secure development by Febi and Kubo people in Papua New Guinea's Western Province reveal a patterned history of failing brokers, incomplete projects and wasted money. Within this longer trajectory, three overlapping waves of brokerage can be discerned, each emerging in response to the limitations of its predecessors. These waves differ in brokers' social positioning, the bases on which they claim representative legitimacy, and the forms of capital-material, social or symbolic-they seek to accumulate. Shifts in brokerage practice reflect generational change and increasing engagement with governance, financial management and service-delivery systems previously experienced as remote. Our analysis centres on the second wave, situating it between earlier and nascent formations. Taken cumulatively, these waves of brokerage mediate structural gaps and facilitate Febi and Kubo incorporation into provincial, national and global regimes that promise future advancement, even as they deepen entanglement in clientelistic relations.
