Joel Christian Reed

Gangstalking is a Western cultural notion referring to systematic harassment from covert assailants. While not a ‘real phenomenon’ compared with genuine stalking, experients exhibit worse depression, post-traumatic symptoms and suicidal ideation. Clinically, gangstalking is paranoid schizophrenia. However, experients reject the mental illness diagnosis. They report impossible feats of espionage, gaslighting and mental anguish orchestrated by, e.g., the police, CIA or even aliens. They hear voices that ‘attack’ with ‘energy weapons’ to cause physical pain. This project explores gangstalking as a cultural concept of distress (CCD) as defined in the DSM-5, which is how cultural groups understand suffering based on collective experience and popular theories. I introduce what may be an unrecognized Western CCD by studying Targeted Individuals, a neglected biosocial community. Treated as conspiracists, crises of public health citizenship arise around their de-legitimization. Ethnography with support groups and activists emphasizes the cultural dimensions of gangstalking, contributing to the anthropology of sensations and contesting the field of medical semiotics. Unusual or implausible beliefs fill the explanatory gap created by the failures of medical care. As a form of social suffering, gangstalking is a product of broader sociopolitical contexts and power dynamics that need to be demystified to reveal its true causes.