Description
Book Synopsis Regional mental hospitals in India are perceived as colonial artefacts in need of reformation. In the last two decades, there has been discussion around the maltreatment of patients, corruption and poor quality of mental health treatment in these institutions. This ethnography scrutinizes the management of madness in one of these asylum-like institutions in the context of national change and the global mental health movement. The author explores the assembling and impact of psychiatric, bureaucratic, gendered and queer narratives in and around the hospital. Finally, the author attempts to reconcile social anthropology and psychiatry by scrutinising their divergent approaches towards ‘mad narratives’.
Trade Review “The cases in this book are wonderful, rich and full of complexities … They are the heart of the book and offer insights into diverse lives and resonant themes, especially related to gender, marriage, queer lives and kin dynamics.” • Sarah Pinto, Tufts University
“The book offers an excellent ethnography and an original analysis of several challenges and dilemmas faced by mental health workers and long stay patients in institutionalized psychiatry in contemporary India. I very much enjoyed reading the book, especially the author’s self-reflexive approach and positioning in the field.” • Helene Basu, University of Münster
Table of Contents Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Map 0.1
Introduction: Indian Psychiatric Spaces and Mad Narratives
Chapter 1. Ethnographic Research in Psychiatry: Ethical Contemplations and Sensorial Engagements
Chapter 2. Everyday Routines, Life and Solicitudes in Asha
Chapter 3. Resisting the Uniform: Social Distinctions and Hierarchies in the Wards
Chapter 4. A Machine for the Production of Inscriptions: Practices of Paperworkin Asha
Chapter 5. Negotiations and Imaginations in the Context of Discharge and Rehabilitation
Chapter 6. ‘This Hospital is Not Good’: What a Psychiatric Patient Can Tell Us about Psychiatric Culture?
Chapter 7. Being Gay and Feeling Female: Queer Voices from Indian Psychiatry
Conclusion
References
Index
