Descripción del proyecto
Más allá de la psiquiatría: análisis interdisciplinar de la discapacidad psíquica en África
El proyecto MaDAf, financiado con fondos europeos, se propone investigar la historia de la demencia en África occidental durante el proceso de descolonización y después de que sus respectivos países lograran la independencia. Su objetivo es crear un historial social comparado de la demencia cuya perspectiva irá más allá de la historia de la psiquiatría. En primer lugar, el equipo de MaDAf definirá y clasificará la demencia para analizar los procesos de control de la población durante la era poscolonial. Después, estudiará todas las instituciones que tratan la demencia de manera punitiva y, por último, investigará las instituciones psiquiátricas de África occidental, consideradas una forma de confinamiento no penal. Se prevé que los resultados del proyecto marquen nuevos caminos en las tendencias africanas y mundiales.
Objetivo
Combining multi-site archival work, the MaDAf project will outline a history of madness in West Africa, during the decolonisation period and after independence. The project will focus on three main areas connected to the history of Africa, decolonisation, and the history of madness: by looking at a the decolonisation and post-independence periods, the project aims firstly to underline the ruptures but also the continuities in the everyday government of madness; it will offer a theoretical framework for using hitherto unexplored archives in order to construct a comparative history of madness from below; it intends to give a comparative social history of madness that goes beyond the history of psychiatry, and to outline broader analytical pathways to integrating the results into global trends;
Although sociology and anthropology have explored mental disorder in Africa, this theme of research remains under-analysed by historians. This project follows three transversal lines of research: firstly, it will look at the processes of definition and categorisation of madness by a diversity of actors in order to analyse the processes of population control during the (post)colonial era; secondly, it will shed light on a multi-site analysis of madness in West Africa by looking beyond strictly psychiatric spaces in order to scrutinise all the institutions that handle madness in a punitive manner; thirdly, the project will investigate psychiatric institutions in West Africa, understood as a non-penal form of confinement.
MADAF will be the first detailed and comparative historical investigation of madness and psychiatry on the African continent. The project aims to offer ground-breaking results with regard to the ordinary practices and experiences of madness on the ground in West Africa. Combining the methodology offers by micro-history and social history and an interdisciplinary approach, the project will more generally open up new pathways in both African and global history.
Ámbito científico
Programa(s)
Régimen de financiación
ERC-STG - Starting GrantInstitución de acogida
75794 Paris
Francia