Never leave yourself: Ethnopsychology as mediator of psychological globalization among Belizean schoolgirls

How do transnational ideas and images become psychologically salient to youth in local communities? Based on five years of fieldwork among high school girls in a rapidly changing Belizean community, this article investigates how some transcultural symbolic material (e.g., gender-based Maltreatment) becomes psychologically salient in a given society and yet other constructs (e.g., thin body image) can pass by with relatively-few consequences in an increasingly transnational world. The ethnopsychological practice of self-protection among young Belizean women, which girls describe as "Never Leave Yourself," mediates how girls make sense of and incorporate transnational concepts into their lived experience. The current material realities and particular historic moment in Belize also influence variations in how transnational concepts are incorporated.