Of Numbers and Moods: Screening for Mental Health Issues in a Rohingya Refugee Camp in Bangladesh

Screening refugees for mental health issues, medical assistants use a digital tool that produces a numerical score but also, importantly, attunes to the moods of their clients and the atmospheres of their homes. In this article, we propose the concept of numeration-attunement as helpful for medical anthropology. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted among medical assistants working in the Kutapalong refugee camp in Bangladesh, we explore their assessment of the mental health of the refugees: its numeration-attunement. To develop the notion of numeration-attunement, we draw on numeration research as well as phenomenology. Comprehending how medical assistants assess the mental health of refugees requires attention both to numeration and datafication by way of a screening tool as well as the revelatory character of attunement to moods.