Insanity, Race and Colonialism: Managing Mental Disorder in the Post-Emancipation British Caribbean, 1838-1914

ISBN-13: 9781137028624 / Angielski / Twarda / 2014 / 285 str.

Leonard Smith

Opis

Despite emancipation from the evils of enslavement in 1838, most people of African origin in the British West Indian colonies continued to suffer serious material deprivation and racial oppression. This book examines the management and treatment of those who became insane, in the period until 1914. The exposure of deplorable conditions and flagrant abuses in the public lunatic asylum in Kingston, Jamaica, in the late 1850s exemplified the defective nature of provision for mentally disordered people throughout the region. Thereafter, British-inspired 'civilising' reforms were gradually implemented in the main Caribbean territories. However, in some of the region's other colonies, improvements were little more than cosmetic.

The circumstances that propelled people into the lunatic asylums are explored, as are the characteristics and experiences of those who inhabited the institutions. The dilemmas and contradictions apparent in asylum management highlighted the perennial difficulties of the British imperial project in action.

Recenzje

"A richly-researched and wide-ranging study, that forces readers to think again about the history of psychiatry, about empire, and about its impact on the Caribbean." - James H. Mills, Professor of Modern History, Centre for the Social History Of Health and Healthcare (CSHHH) Glasgow, University of Strathclyde, UK

Spis treści

Introduction 1. Caribbean Institutions in Context 2. The Early Lunatic Asylums 3. Scandal in Jamaica - The Kingston Lunatic Asylum 4. Reform - The Jamaica Lunatic Asylum 5. Colonial Asylums in Transition 6. Pathways to the Asylum 7. The Patient Challenge 8. The Colonial Asylum Regime Conclusion

O autorze

Leonard Smith is Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham, UK. He has written extensively on the history of provision for the insane in the 18th and 19th centuries. His publications include 'Cure, Comfort and Safe Custody': Public Lunatic Asylums in early Nineteenth-Century England (1999) and Lunatic Hospitals in Georgian England, 1750-1830 (2007). He has worked in mental health services since 1973.