Psychiatric Discourse and Colonial Ideology in British Africa
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5433/1984-3356.2016v9n18p467Keywords:
British Colonial Africa, Ethnopsichiatry, Scientific discourse, Nationalist uprisings, Colonial ideology.Abstract
Psychiatric studies produced by Europeans during colonial period on African mental disorders contribute to a reflection over human sciences' normative and paradigms. Considering Foucault's statement that madness in modern western society can be defined as a discourse constitutive of power relations, the article investigates how colonial states exercised power through psychiatric theories and its discourses. Psychiatric studies in colonial Africa give the means to an interpretation of what was considered normal and pathological in that context and provide significant evidence about the ambiguity in the conclusions reached by those physicians and researchers. The essay explores a set of psychiatric writings produced during 1920-1960, a period marked by the triggering of nationalist and pro-independence movements. The main goal here is to shed light on the relationship between the Western medicine and colonial authority and demonstrate how this alliance promoted the control of colonial powers on the African population. It was concluded that during the process of decolonization in Africa, when was the ruling force constantly in disagreement with the native black population, the psychiatric knowledge played the role of legitimizing element of the civilizing mission.References
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SIMONS, H. J. Mental Disease in Africans: Racial Determinism. The Journal of Mental Science, London, v. 104, p. 377-88, 1985.
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VAUGHAN, Megan. Idioms of Madness: Zomba Lunatic Asylum, Nyasaland, in the Colonial Period. Journal of Southern Africa Studies, London, v. 9, n. 2, p. 218-238, 1983.
VINT, F. W. A Preliminary Note on the Cell Content of the Prefrontal Cortex of the East African Native. East African Medical Journal, Nairobi, v. 9, p. 30-55, 1932-1933.
WILKINSON, J. The Mau Mau Movement: Some General and Medical Aspects. East African Medical Journal, Nairobi, v. 7, p. 294-314, 1954.
CAROTHERS, J. C. A Study of Mental Derangement in Africans and an Attempt to Explain its Peculiarities, More Especially in Relation to the African Attitude to Life. The Journal of Mental Science, London, v. 93, p. 548-597, 1947.
CAROTHERS, J. C. Frontal Lobe Function and the African. The Journal of Mental Science, London, v. 97, n. 406, p. 12-48, 1951.
CAROTHERS, J. C. Some Speculations on Insanity in Africans in General. East African Medical Journal, Nairobi, v. 17, p.90-105, 1940.
CAROTHERS, J. C. The African Mind in Health and Disease. Geneva: World Health Organization. 1953.
CAROTHERS, J. C. The Psychology of Mau Mau. Nairobi: Government Printer, 1954.
CHANOCK, Martin. Law, Custom and Social Order: the colonial experience in Malawi and Zambia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1987.
CLEARY, A. S. The Myth of Mau Mau in its International Context. African Affairs, London, v. 89, n. 355, p. 215-238, 1990.
DECRAENE, Philippe. O Pan-Africanismo. São Paulo: Difusão europeia do livro, 1962.
DUBOW, Saul. Wulf Sach's Black Hamlet: A Case of Psychic Vivisection?. African Affairs, London, v. 92, p. 519-556, 1993.
EDGERTON, R. B. Mau Mau: An African Crucible. New York: Free Press, 1989.
ELIAS, Norbert. The Civilising Process: State Formation and Civilization. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. 1978.
FANON, Frantz. Pele negra, máscaras brancas. Salvador: EDUFBA. 2008.
FANON, Frantz. The North African Syndrome. In: FANON, Frantz. Toward the African Revolution. Translation Haakon Chevalier. London: Pelican Books. 1967. p 13-26.
FANON, Frantz. Madness and Civilization. London: Random House. 1989
FANON, Frantz. Michel Foucault: power and knowledge. Sussex: Hassocks. 1980.
FREUD, Sigmund. Totem and Taboo. Resemblances between the Psychic Lives of Savages and Neurotics. Translation A. A. Brill. New York: Vintage Books. 1946.
GERMAN, G. A. Mental Health in Africa 1. The extent of mental health problems in Africa today: An Update of Epidemiological Knowledge. British Journal of Psychiatry, London, v. 151, p. 435-439, 1987.
GILMAN, Sander. Difference and Pathology: Stereotypes of Sexuality, Race and Madness. New York: Ithaca. 1985.
GORDON, H. L. An Inquiry into the correlation of Civilization and Mental Disorders. East African Medical Journal, Nairobi, v. 12. p. 327-335. 1935-6
GORDON, H. L. Editorial. East African Medical Journal, Nairobi, v. 3, n. 8, 1934.
HABTE, A.; WAGAW. Educação e mudança social. In: MAZRUI, Ali A. (Ed.). História geral da África. VIII: África desde 1935. Brasília: UNESCO, 2010. p. 817-844.
HARRIS, Joseph.E.; ZEGHIDOUR, Slimane. A África e a diáspora negra. In: MAZRUI, Ali. A. (Ed.). História Geral da África. VIII. Brasília: UNESCO, 2010. p.861-884.
HARRIS, J. E. A África e a diáspora negra. In: MAZRUI, Ali. A. (Ed.). História geral da África. VIII: África desde 1935. Brasília: UNESCO, 2010. p. 846-872.
JACKSON, Will. Bad Blood: Poverty, Psychopathy and the Politics of Transgression in Kenya Colony, 1939-59. The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, London, v. 39, n. 1, p. 73-94, 2011.
KELLER, R. Madness and Colonization: Psychiatry in the British and French Empires, 1800-1962. Journal of Social History, Pittsburgh, v. 35, n. 2, p. 295-321, 2001.
KIRBY, M. The Unhappiness of the Kikuyu: Or the Seeds of Mau Mau. East African Medical Journal, Nairobi, v. 10, p. 529-532, 1957.
LAUBSCHER, B. J. F. Sex, Custom and Psychopathology: A study of South African Pagan natives. London: George Routledge, 1937.
MANNONI, Octave. Prospero and Caliban. London: Oxford, 1956.
MCCULLOCH, J. Black Peril, White Virtue. Sexual Crime in Southern Rhodesia 1902-1935. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000.
MCCULLOCH, J. Colonial Psychiatry and "the African mind". Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
MCCULLOCH, J. The Emperor's New Clothes: Ethnopsychiatry in Colonial Africa. History of the Human Sciences, London, v. 6, n. 2, p. 35-52, 1993.
ODA, A. M. G. R.; BANZATO, A. E. M.; DALGALARRONDO, P. Some origins of cross-cultural psychiatry. History of Psychiatry, London, v.16, n. 2, p. 155-169, 2005.
OGOT, B. A. (Ed.). Hadith 4: Politics and Nationalism in Colonial Kenya. Nairobi: East African Publishing House, 1972.
PAPE, J. Black and White: The Perils of Sex in Colonial Zimbabwe. Journal of Southern African Studies, London, v. 16, n. 4, p. 31-49, 1990.
PHIRI, D. D. Malawians to Remember: John Chilembwe. Lilongwe: Longman, 1976.
POWER, Joey. Political culture and nationalism in Malawi: building Kwacha. New York: University of Rochester Press, 2010.
RITCHIE, J. F. The African as Suckling and as Adult: A Psychological Study. Manchester: Manchester University Press. 1968.
ROUSSEAU, Jean-Jacques. Do contrato social [1762]. Ensaio sobre a origem das línguas. São Paulo: Abril Cultural, 1978. (Coleção Os Pensadores).
ROUSSEAU, Jean-Jacques. Discurso sobre a origem e os fundamentos da desigualdade entre os homens [1755]; Discurso sobre as ciências e as artes [1750]. São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 1993.
SADOWSKY, Jonathan. Psychiatry and Colonial Ideology in Nigeria. Bulletin of the History of Medicine, Baltimore, v.71, n. 1, p. 94-111, 1997.
SHELLEY, H.; WATSON, H. W. An Investigation Concerning Mental Disorder in the Nyasaland natives. The Journal of Mental Science, London, v. 82, p. 702-725, 1936.
SIMONS, H. J. Mental Disease in Africans: Racial Determinism. The Journal of Mental Science, London, v. 104, p. 377-88, 1985.
VAUGHAN, Megan. Curing Their Ills: Colonial Power and African Illness. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 1991.
VAUGHAN, Megan. Idioms of Madness: Zomba Lunatic Asylum, Nyasaland, in the Colonial Period. Journal of Southern Africa Studies, London, v. 9, n. 2, p. 218-238, 1983.
VINT, F. W. A Preliminary Note on the Cell Content of the Prefrontal Cortex of the East African Native. East African Medical Journal, Nairobi, v. 9, p. 30-55, 1932-1933.
WILKINSON, J. The Mau Mau Movement: Some General and Medical Aspects. East African Medical Journal, Nairobi, v. 7, p. 294-314, 1954.
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2017-01-31
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SANTOS, Gisele Silva. Psychiatric Discourse and Colonial Ideology in British Africa. Antíteses, [S. l.], v. 9, n. 18, p. 467–493, 2017. DOI: 10.5433/1984-3356.2016v9n18p467. Disponível em: https://ojs.uel.br/revistas/uel/index.php/antiteses/article/view/20724. Acesso em: 24 jul. 2024.
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