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 med-ical 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 med-ical 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.