Psychiatric Contours: New African Histories of Madness

Psychiatric Contours explores new histories of psychiatry, derangement, and agitated subjectivities in colonial and decolonizing Africa, broadening the perception of madness beyond the psychiatric. It investigates individuals suffering from miscategorization and proposes fresh concepts to work with emic clues in a granular fashion. The book attends to the words, autobiographies, and hallucinations of the stigmatized and afflicted, as well as the powerful, using research on possession "hysteria" and schizophrenia.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 360 pages
Publication date: 26 April 2024
Publisher: Duke University Press

Psychiatric Contours delves into the rich tapestry of new histories of psychiatry, disorder, and agitated subjectivities in colonial and decolonizing Africa. This comprehensive volume expands the concept of madness, encompassing not only psychiatric perspectives but also the broader realm of human experience. Through a series of insightful chapters, the book uncovers the presence of madness in individuals, collective groups, and distressing situations. It also explores the experiences of those who are miscategorized or marginalized by traditional psychiatric frameworks. A central theme in this work is the concept of vivacity, borrowed from Foucauldian thought, which sheds light on the intricate connections between madness, pathology, creativity, turbulence, and psychopolitics. The archives, whether patient-authored or not, provide a window into the furies and fantasies that unfolded within asylums, colonial institutions, decolonizing missions, and slave ships. By exploring the frayed edges of politicized deliria, the volume expands the horizons of psychiatry's history in Africa, transcending clinical spaces and classification. Moreover, it introduces fresh concepts, such as the vernacular, to guide the granular analysis of emic clues and offer a broader perspective on the psychiatric within histories of madness. Spanning across significant portions of ex-British and ex-French colonial Africa, Psychiatric Contours pays close attention to the words, autobiographies, and hallucinations of those who are stigmatized and afflicted, as well as those in positions of power. Expatriate psychiatrists, alongside patients, asylums, and boarding schools, engage in these readings through research on possession "hysteria" and schizophrenia. In essence, this book showcases innovative approaches to writing not only medical history but also subaltern and global histories.

Contributors to this groundbreaking work include renowned scholars Hubertus Büschel, Raphaël Gallien, Matthew M. Heaton, Richard Hölzl, Nancy Rose Hunt, Richard C. Keller, Sloan Mahone, Nana Osei Quarshie, Jonathan Sadowsky, and Romain Tiquet. Their collective expertise and insights enrich the narrative, providing a comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the complexities of psychiatry, disorder, and agitated subjectivities in Africa during the colonial and decolonizing periods.

Weight: 514g
Dimension: 228 x 152 x 23 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781478030348