Aux sources de la folie

Aux sources de la folie

Edited by Gina Aïtmehdi, Camille Evrard, Raphaël Gallien, Paul Marquis and Romain Tiquet 

Sources 8 | 2024

 
The contributions composing this special issue bring together historians and anthropologists to explore the daily realities of madness under and in the aftermath of colonialism. Drawing on institutional and personal archives, interviews and testimonies, observations and photographs, but also tackling absence and refusal, the six articles span French West Africa and contemporary Algeria, Gabon and Ghana, as well as colonial Algeria and the Upper Volta in the 1970s.
This diversity of contexts highlights the complementarity and/or competition between medical and non-medical representations of madness, including those formulated by people suffering from psychiatric disorders and their families and friends.
The issue thus highlights the intersection of various “dispositifs” (medical, judicial, religious or ritual), bodies of knowledge and spaces dealing with madness, in order to capture the complexity of life trajectories. By critically analysing the forms of intimacy established with the respondents, we ultimately examine how methodological reflexivity contributes to renewing the epistemological basis for the study of madness in Africa. 

Gina Aïtmehdi, Camille Evrard, Raphaël Gallien and Paul Marquis
Introduction. Sur les traces de la folie : sources et terrains africains (xxe-xxie siècle)

Yannis Boudina
Troubles dans l’ordinaire : ethnographie réflexive d’une forme de folie en contexte salafiste (Tizi-Ouzou, Algérie)

Paul Marquis
Un journal à l’hôpital. Réformer la psychiatrie dans l’Algérie coloniale en guerre (1953-1959)

Cecilia Draicchio
What’s in a Refusal? Methodological and Ethical Notes from an Ethnography of Mental Health Care in Rural Ghana

Cordille-Verdia Babongui-Mba
Enquêter la peur au ventre. Retour réflexif d’une enquête de terrain sur la folie au Gabon

Romain Tiquet
Sur les ‘traces’ de Jean-Louis Renauld : des archives privées pour approcher l’histoire d’un service de psychiatrie postcolonial (Bobo-Dioulasso, Haute-Volta, 1972-1974)

Silvia Falconieri
Écrire l’histoire juridique de la folie en Afrique française (fin xixe siècle-1960)