Periodic Reporting for period 2 - MaDAf (A History of Madness in West Africa: Governing Mental Disorder during Decolonisation (Senegal, Burkina Faso and Ghana - 1940s – 1970s))
Reporting period: 2022-04-01 to 2023-09-30
At the crossroads of the history of madness, the renewal of colonial history and the history of Africa, this project aims to outline a history of mental disorder in West Africa, during decolonisation and beyond independence (from the 1940s until the mid 1970s).
This project aims to carry out the first comparative and connected analysis of mental disorder in three West African countries: Senegal, Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso) and Gold Coast (now Ghana). This comparative approach will allow us to examine the diversity of local conditions in former colonial territories of the French and British Empires as well as the connections and circulations of discourses, practices and various actors.
The project will have two main objectives. First, due to limited psychiatric structures in West Africa, it is necessary to develop a multi-site approach to madness, at different levels (from the level of the individual to the global level), focusing on all the places and institutions of social control that have to deal with madness on a daily basis: legal institutions, the army, the police, prisons, labour camps, the streets, the religious sphere, etc. Second, by looking at the history of madness during the period of decolonisation and beyond independence, the project aims at underlining the ruptures but also the continuities in the everyday government of madness. how did madness come to be constructed during the colonial period as a problem of a political and social order rather than a matter of public health? Secondly, to what extent did the colonial influence on the treatment of madness play a role in the largely punitive and repressive nature of the treatment of psychiatric troubles in West African states after they gained independence?
This project will mobilise a wide range of written and oral sources: administrative archives accessible in European and African repositories , press materials, novels, as well as iconographic sources and interviews with former African medical staff and European volunteers. MADAF will also rely for its success on the identification and exploration of hitherto unexplored archives, particularly psychiatric archives and patient files that will allow us to construct a comparative history of madness from below.
The focus on the history of madness in West Africa will outline a history of deviance that will shed new light on African history from the margins. The theme of madness constitutes an appropriate laboratory within which we will be able to analyse the state in Africa and African societies in its colonial and postcolonial dimensions from a new angle. Moreover, by suggesting a double decentring of the history of madness, the project aims to produce a social history of madness that will go beyond the history of psychiatry and a history of madness starting in West Africa, in order to build broader analytical pathways through which to integrate the results into global trends. As a result of the timeframe I have chosen (decolonisation and the first years after independence), MADAF will bring to other disciplines (sociology, anthropology) an analysis that will allow us to measure the impact of the colonial interval on various structures, actors, forms of knowledge and practices in West Africa. Finally, a project like MADAF could have major implications in terms of policy, since this research will doubtless raise political questions about the activities of institutions working in the fields of global health and sustainable development on the African continent.
This project aims to carry out the first comparative and connected analysis of mental disorder in three West African countries: Senegal, Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso) and Gold Coast (now Ghana). This comparative approach will allow us to examine the diversity of local conditions in former colonial territories of the French and British Empires as well as the connections and circulations of discourses, practices and various actors.
The project will have two main objectives. First, due to limited psychiatric structures in West Africa, it is necessary to develop a multi-site approach to madness, at different levels (from the level of the individual to the global level), focusing on all the places and institutions of social control that have to deal with madness on a daily basis: legal institutions, the army, the police, prisons, labour camps, the streets, the religious sphere, etc. Second, by looking at the history of madness during the period of decolonisation and beyond independence, the project aims at underlining the ruptures but also the continuities in the everyday government of madness. how did madness come to be constructed during the colonial period as a problem of a political and social order rather than a matter of public health? Secondly, to what extent did the colonial influence on the treatment of madness play a role in the largely punitive and repressive nature of the treatment of psychiatric troubles in West African states after they gained independence?
This project will mobilise a wide range of written and oral sources: administrative archives accessible in European and African repositories , press materials, novels, as well as iconographic sources and interviews with former African medical staff and European volunteers. MADAF will also rely for its success on the identification and exploration of hitherto unexplored archives, particularly psychiatric archives and patient files that will allow us to construct a comparative history of madness from below.
The focus on the history of madness in West Africa will outline a history of deviance that will shed new light on African history from the margins. The theme of madness constitutes an appropriate laboratory within which we will be able to analyse the state in Africa and African societies in its colonial and postcolonial dimensions from a new angle. Moreover, by suggesting a double decentring of the history of madness, the project aims to produce a social history of madness that will go beyond the history of psychiatry and a history of madness starting in West Africa, in order to build broader analytical pathways through which to integrate the results into global trends. As a result of the timeframe I have chosen (decolonisation and the first years after independence), MADAF will bring to other disciplines (sociology, anthropology) an analysis that will allow us to measure the impact of the colonial interval on various structures, actors, forms of knowledge and practices in West Africa. Finally, a project like MADAF could have major implications in terms of policy, since this research will doubtless raise political questions about the activities of institutions working in the fields of global health and sustainable development on the African continent.
Romain Tiquet (Principal Investigator)
• Mission Burkina (October 2021)
In Burkina Faso, the initial objective was to focus on the psychiatric service in Bobo-Dioulasso, which was the first service to open in the country in 1956. The regional archives were consulted. In addition, I was able to access the archives of the psychiatric service, after agreement from the ethics committee of the Bobo-Dioulasso hospital. I was able to collect a set of archives and conduct some interviews.
In view of the results of these two field missions, I will focus in the coming months and years on Burkina Faso and Senegal because the sources are rich and multiple.
• I made 6 presentations of my work (as discussant or speaker) at research seminars, workshops or conferences, mainly on patient files and psychiatric archives collected in Burkina Faso
• A book chapter is actually under press for publishing in late 2022.
Gina Aïtmehdi (Postdoctoral Fellow)
• Firstly, a field trip in Niamy (Niger, 4-17 April 2022) where she requested an ethical clearance from the Public Health Ministry and from the ministry of Higher Education in Niger in order to get access to medical archives and records of the Pavillon E (main psychiatric ward in Niger, Niamey). Ethical clearance were accepted and Gina Aïtmehdi plans an other field trip in 2022 to explore the psychiatric records.During this field trip, she conducted also several interviews with medical staff and former patients.
• Secondly, she took part (preparation and participation) to a focus group on ethics and research in psychiatry and social sciences organized by Rafaela Nunes, intern at MaDAf, in the frame of her Master thesis in medical humanities (Aix-Marseille University)
Camille Evrard (Postdoctoral Fellow)
• She conducted two fieldtrips in West Africa (Niger and Mauritania) that resulted in about thirty interviews as well as consultation in archives (National Archives of Niger, colonial period, Military Affairs series and Health series) and specialized libraries . The fieldtrip to Niger was also devoted to the constitution, in collaboration with Gina Aïtmehdi, of a request for consultation of Nigerian psychiatric archives to the National Ethics Commission of the country - a request that has just been accepted.
• In addition, two archives fieldtrips at the Historical Archives of Defense (Vincennes, Paris) were carried out to look at the archives of the Indochina War (
• Time was also devoted to participation in several collective scientific activities, colloquia, seminars, research meetings and focus groups
Paul Marquis (Postdoctoral Fellow) :
• In March 2022, he also participated in the first two sessions of the seminar organized by the ANR project AMIAF, focused on the legal history of madness in colonial situation. Lastly, he presented a paper in front of student and professors of the EHESS (Paris), about the effects of the Second World War and the Algerian of Independence on the Psychiatric institutions in Algeria (April, 12th, 2022).
• The second part of his research activities consisted in the preparation and the participation to a focus group on ethics and research in psychiatry and social sciences in the frame of the Master thesis of Rafaela Nunes, intern in the MaDAf project.
• Mission Burkina (October 2021)
In Burkina Faso, the initial objective was to focus on the psychiatric service in Bobo-Dioulasso, which was the first service to open in the country in 1956. The regional archives were consulted. In addition, I was able to access the archives of the psychiatric service, after agreement from the ethics committee of the Bobo-Dioulasso hospital. I was able to collect a set of archives and conduct some interviews.
In view of the results of these two field missions, I will focus in the coming months and years on Burkina Faso and Senegal because the sources are rich and multiple.
• I made 6 presentations of my work (as discussant or speaker) at research seminars, workshops or conferences, mainly on patient files and psychiatric archives collected in Burkina Faso
• A book chapter is actually under press for publishing in late 2022.
Gina Aïtmehdi (Postdoctoral Fellow)
• Firstly, a field trip in Niamy (Niger, 4-17 April 2022) where she requested an ethical clearance from the Public Health Ministry and from the ministry of Higher Education in Niger in order to get access to medical archives and records of the Pavillon E (main psychiatric ward in Niger, Niamey). Ethical clearance were accepted and Gina Aïtmehdi plans an other field trip in 2022 to explore the psychiatric records.During this field trip, she conducted also several interviews with medical staff and former patients.
• Secondly, she took part (preparation and participation) to a focus group on ethics and research in psychiatry and social sciences organized by Rafaela Nunes, intern at MaDAf, in the frame of her Master thesis in medical humanities (Aix-Marseille University)
Camille Evrard (Postdoctoral Fellow)
• She conducted two fieldtrips in West Africa (Niger and Mauritania) that resulted in about thirty interviews as well as consultation in archives (National Archives of Niger, colonial period, Military Affairs series and Health series) and specialized libraries . The fieldtrip to Niger was also devoted to the constitution, in collaboration with Gina Aïtmehdi, of a request for consultation of Nigerian psychiatric archives to the National Ethics Commission of the country - a request that has just been accepted.
• In addition, two archives fieldtrips at the Historical Archives of Defense (Vincennes, Paris) were carried out to look at the archives of the Indochina War (
• Time was also devoted to participation in several collective scientific activities, colloquia, seminars, research meetings and focus groups
Paul Marquis (Postdoctoral Fellow) :
• In March 2022, he also participated in the first two sessions of the seminar organized by the ANR project AMIAF, focused on the legal history of madness in colonial situation. Lastly, he presented a paper in front of student and professors of the EHESS (Paris), about the effects of the Second World War and the Algerian of Independence on the Psychiatric institutions in Algeria (April, 12th, 2022).
• The second part of his research activities consisted in the preparation and the participation to a focus group on ethics and research in psychiatry and social sciences in the frame of the Master thesis of Rafaela Nunes, intern in the MaDAf project.
The main progress expected beyond the state of art and the expected results until the end of the project are as follows :
- to build a multi-site history of madness beyond the only frame of the psychiatric ward
- to look at the history of madness beyond the colonial period
- to bring the first comparative study of madness in west africa
- to bring a transdisciplinary approad to the suty of madness in Africa (mainly historical and anthropological)
- to use unexplored sources for the history of madness in Africa (psychitric files and patien files, military files, oral interviews, etc.)
- to build a multi-site history of madness beyond the only frame of the psychiatric ward
- to look at the history of madness beyond the colonial period
- to bring the first comparative study of madness in west africa
- to bring a transdisciplinary approad to the suty of madness in Africa (mainly historical and anthropological)
- to use unexplored sources for the history of madness in Africa (psychitric files and patien files, military files, oral interviews, etc.)