Madness, Bureaucracy and Gender in Mumbai, India Narratives From a Psychiatric Hospital

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'.

About the author

Annika Strauss is a Postdoctoral research and teaching fellow at the Department for Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Münster, Germany. Until recently she was a project coordinator of a community health project that collaboratively developed disease preventive measures for vulnerable segments of the population in Bochum (Ruhr area).

Product details

• Authors: Annika Strauss, Annika Strauss Strauss
• Publisher: BERGHAHN BOOKS, INC
• Content: Book
• Product form: Hardback
• Publication date: 01.09.2023
• Subject: Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > Medicine > General; Social sciences, law, business > Social sciences (general)
• EAN: 9781805390688
• ISBN: 978-1-80539-068-8
• Pages: 328
• Subjects: Mumbai, MEDICAL / Mental Health, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural & Social, PSYCHOLOGY / Mental Health, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Human Services, India, Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography, Mental health services, Care of the mentally ill, Social and cultural anthropology, Care of people with mental health issues, Medical Anthropology; Gender Studies and Sexuality, Gender Studies and Sexuality