The Trouble of Stigma in the Age of Datafication: Screening for Mental Health Issues in a Refugee Camp in Jordan.

ABSTRACT

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in a refugee camp in Jordan, this article investigates how datafication through digital screening technologies helps shape mental health issues in the face of widespread uneasiness about the subject, especially among the intended beneficiaries. We argue that the refugees and their health care providers face a dilemma on the one hand, the desire to make mental health issues visible and clinically actionable through datafication and, on the other hand, the wish to keep mental health issues out of public view to avoid potential stigma.