Based on her reflexive ethnography and building on a feminist perspective, Mahima Nayar sensitively presents the experiences of women living in Jahangirpuri: an urban setting located in north-west Delhi, characterized as heterogeneous in regard to ethnic, caste, religion and socioeconomic status. In her monograph, the author focuses on the challenges of mental health among women from poor households and contextualizes their experience of psychosocial and physical distress by referring to intersections between macrofactors (urbanization, globalization, hierarchal social structure, poverty, gender inequalities) and microfactors (household, neighbourhood, relationships).

Against All Odds. Psychosocial Distress and Healing among Women draws upon a wide range of theoretical and empirical materials ordered thematically in seven chapters. The book opens with an outline of theoretical approaches towards conceptualization of mental illness, mental health and distress, including feminist interpretations of women's emotional distress by Phyllis Chesler, Dorothy Smith, Kamala Ganesh and Sandhya. Next, Nayar sketches the sociocultural landscape of densely populated neighbourhoods in India, lacking an adequate infrastructure, shelter or basic services, in which fulfilling numerous social roles as wife, mother, daughter, caregiver and an employee becomes to many women a source of a chronic distress.

In Chapter Three, the author explains her methodological choices and describes some cultural particularities encountered in the field that verified her initial research plans. Chapter Four is devoted to women's narratives about their mental health. The narratives reveal the folk perceptions of female distress and understandings of relations between social milieu, daily burdens and physical and emotional symptoms as well as women's attitude towards medical diagnosis and treatments. The author also reconstructs the various sources of support used by women, such as informal support, based on family relations; semi-informal support outside of the household, i.e. self-help groups; and formal support offered by various types of healers, i.e. homoeopaths or certified doctors. Nayar found the latter group fully disinterested in their patients' social context, for example cases of domestic violence.

In Chapter Five, the author outlines the structural context of the encountered women's challenges. The district of Jahangirpuri, despite some substantial infrastructural changes, remains an unfavourable environment for women. Due to a high crime rate and an intense activity of local gangs, unavailability of public space for women, fear of their children being kidnapped or daughters being harassed, Nayar compares the women's situation to suffocation. The comparison seems apt also in regard to the curtailment of their agency determined by the social structure, marital conflicts, domestic violence and gendered division of labour. The author interprets this pattern of female experiences by applying the concept of social suffering, conceptualized as misery arising not only from unequal distribution of material goods in society but also from people's lived experience of domination and exclusion.

Chapter Six is a case study of Radha. Her life history enables Nayar to expose the complexity of the social factors involved in the women's social suffering and also to illustrate how some women challenge the existing gender regime through their actions. Finally, the author concludes the monograph by arguing that the process of misrecognizing women's social suffering as an ‘individual’ medical problem is symbolic violence which reproduces hierarchical structures. She indicates two main pathways available to reduce female distress: the women's movement and cultural ways of healing.

This book would be of interest to social scientists researching women's health in a global context. However, it could be also an enriching read for medical professionals and mental health staff working with women in patriarchal settings or professionals designing support for vulnerable groups in similar contexts. Against All Odds, besides the insight into distress of women from Jahangirpuri, is also a valuable reading for qualitative researchers, as the author discusses the challenges she faced in the field. Nayar, trained as a psychiatric social worker, writes about going on a journey with unlearning not only in regard to the biomedical approach to mental health, but also with regard to her idea of privacy, confidentiality and strategies to build trustful relations with study participants. Her experiences are a refreshing inspiration to those challenged by encounters in the field. For example, she reflects: ‘While we go into the field with some criteria in our head, we often fail to take into account that we will also be judged and evaluated. And it is only when we pass their evaluation which is based on their criteria that we are given a chance to get a deeper look at their everyday lives’ (p. 75).

To conclude, Nayar's book has enriched discourse on female mental health by providing insight into the experiences of psychosocial distress of women living in Jahangirpuri and by contextualizing it within the complexity of the local social landscape.

Mahima Nayar 基于她反思性的民族志和女权主义视角，敏感地呈现了生活在贾汉吉尔普里的女性的经历：一个位于德里西北部的城市环境，在种族、种姓、宗教和社会经济地位方面具有异质性。在她的专着中，作者关注贫困家庭妇女的心理健康挑战，并通过提及宏观因素（城市化、全球化、社会等级结构、贫困、性别不平等）和微观因素之间的交叉点，将她们的心理社会和身体痛苦经历置于背景之中。家庭、邻里、人际关系）。

排除万难。《女性的社会心理困扰和康复》借鉴了广泛的理论和经验材料，按主题分为七章。本书首先概述了对精神疾病、心理健康和痛苦的概念化的理论方法，包括 Phyllis Chesler、Dorothy Smith、Kamala Ganesh 和 Sandhya 对女性情感痛苦的女权主义解释。接下来，纳亚尔描绘了印度人口稠密的社区的社会文化景观，缺乏足够的基础设施、住所或基本服务，在这些社区中，扮演妻子、母亲、女儿、照顾者和雇员等众多社会角色成为许多女性慢性病的来源。苦恼。

在第三章中，作者解释了她的方法选择，并描述了在该领域遇到的一些文化特征，验证了她最初的研究计划。第四章专门讲述女性关于她们心理健康的叙述。叙事揭示了民间对女性苦恼的看法，对社会环境、日常负担和身心症状之间关系的理解，以及女性对医疗诊断和治疗的态度。作者还重构了妇女使用的各种支持来源，例如基于家庭关系的非正式支持；家庭以外的半非正式支持，即自助团体；以及各种类型的治疗师（即顺势疗法师或认证医生）提供的正式支持。Nayar 发现后一组对他们的病人完全不感兴趣

在第五章中，作者概述了女性所面临挑战的结构背景。Jahangirpuri 区尽管基础设施发生了一些重大变化，但仍然是对妇女不利的环境。由于犯罪率高，当地帮派活动频繁，女性无法获得公共空间，害怕孩子被绑架或女儿被骚扰，纳亚尔将女性的处境比作窒息。这种比较似乎也适用于由社会结构、婚姻冲突、家庭暴力和性别分工决定的他们的能动性的缩减。作者通过应用社会苦难的概念来解释这种女性体验模式，概念化为苦难不仅源于社会中物质财富的不平等分配，还源于人们生活中的统治和排斥经历。

第六章是茹阿妲的案例研究。她的生活经历使纳亚尔能够揭露女性社会苦难所涉及的社会因素的复杂性，并说明一些女性如何通过她们的行动挑战现有的性别制度。最后，作者认为将妇女的社会痛苦误认为是“个体”医疗问题的过程是再现等级结构的象征性暴力。她指出了减少女性痛苦的两种主要途径：女性运动和文化治疗方式。

在全球范围内研究妇女健康的社会科学家会对本书感兴趣。然而，对于在父权制环境中与女性一起工作的医疗专业人员和心理健康人员或在类似情况下为弱势群体提供支持的专业人员，它也可能是一本丰富的读物。克服一切困难除了对来自贾汉吉尔普里的女性痛苦的洞察之外，对于定性研究人员来说，也是一本有价值的读物，因为作者讨论了她在该领域面临的挑战。Nayar 接受过精神病学社会工作者的培训，她写道，她的旅程不仅涉及心理健康的生物医学方法，还涉及她的隐私、保密和与研究参与者建立信任关系的策略。她的经历对那些在该领域遭遇挑战的人来说是一种令人耳目一新的灵感。例如，她反映：“虽然我们带着一些标准进入这个领域，但我们经常没有考虑到我们也会被评判和评估。

总而言之，Nayar 的书通过深入了解生活在 Jahangirpuri 的妇女的心理社会痛苦经历，并将其置于当地社会环境的复杂性中，丰富了关于女性心理健康的论述。