'This hospital is not good!' – A mad narrative from a psychiatric ward in Mumbai, India

Strauss, Annika

Forschungsartikel (Buchbeitrag)

Zusammenfassung

Mad stories, particularly in the context of biomedical institutions beyond the West, have rarely been explored and analysed systematically. In mental hospitals, mad narratives tend to be ripped apart in the processes of bureaucratic admission and diagnosis. They are considered as corrupt and void of social meaning. However, from a social anthropological perspective "mad narratives" emerge from certain ways to experience and frame the world. Moral claims of mad persons concerning psychiatric treatment and well-being though, are mostly ignored in mental health institutions and therefore not taken up by professionals in the context of ethical contemplations or debates. I analyse and contextualise a psychiatric patient's talk from a public mental hospital in Mumbai whom I encountered during my ethnographic research. Ramesh's talk gives insights into a life world determined by the experience of suffering, structural violence and failure. As Ramesh's case illustrates, mad narratives can serve as an effective tool in managing a life of unsoundness that has to be lived in an often threatening institutional environment.

Details zur Publikation

Buchtitel: Hospitals in South Asia. Health Policies, Care Practices/L’hôpital en Asie du Sud. Politiques de santé, pratiques de soin
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019
ISBN: 978-2-7132-2776-9
Sprache, in der die Publikation verfasst ist: Englisch
Veranstaltung: Paris