Women, psychiatry, deinstitutionalisation
Call for papers
for the 2/2024 special issue of the journal Genesis
This special issue intends to examine the role of female psychiatrists, psychologists, psychoanalysts, social workers, nurses and volunteers in the field of mental health in Italy and other countries since the Second World War. Women’s contribution to the transformation of the asylum system and the creation of different mental health services remains under-studied in history. While historiography has investigated patients’ experiences, more rarely has it analysed the work, practices and choices of those
professionals who took part in the deinstitutionalisation movement within complex and
uneven national and local contexts.
The time span considered embraces the long phase of deinstitutionalisation happening during the second half of the Twentieth century. The Italian legislative outcome of this experience ‒ the so-called Basaglia law of 1978 that ‘closed down’ asylums ‒ contributes to a sharper time cadrage, while in other geo-political contexts more diversified processes of reform or change suggest more nuanced chronologies.
The opening of the previously closed universe of the asylum gradually transformed the therapeutic practices, created new professional profiles and let in multiple actors from civil society. The new professionals contributed to the diversification of the healthcare workforce and, coming from volunteers’ ranks and civil and political militants, different subjects took an interest in the fate of asylums and in-patients. The experience of the inmates was also given room for its expression, in a context where their suggestions, claims and demands began to be taken seriously.
Scholars are invited to contribute with case studies, indicating what their approach to the sources is, and contextualising these experiences. We aim to uncover the female presence and ‘feminisation’ of the sector through giving consideration to the different positionalities and the socio-cultural fabric that made them possible. We also intend to highlight tensions and difficulties in accessing training and senior positions, as well as the redefinition of languages and methods that women promoted in the collective construction of teamwork.
One the one hand, this will help us understand the interaction with the male component and the non-lay (religious, linked to religious confessions,) staff, as well as patients and their entourage. On the other hand, it will also help us analyse the contribution that feminist thought and practices, which were crucial to the historical moment under consideration, produced within the deinstitutionalisation movement (Crook 2022).
This special issue intends to uncover the relational strategies and theoretical trends that have contributed to transforming mental healthcare practices and the dominant paradigms in psychiatry.
For all of the above, contributions that interrogate the links between the theoretical and political elaborations of emerging feminisms and the positions taken by women in the deinstitutionalisation process are welcome. Articles analysing the impact of feminism on certain psychotherapeutic, socio-therapeutic and psychoanalytic elaborations, and practices that problematise gender relations in the social and family dimensions and redefine the lexicon of impulses, desires and emotions are also welcome.
Case studies that revise chronologies, in consideration of the désinstitutionnalisation de longue durée that has emerged in recent years (Guillemain, Klein, Thifault, 2018; Smith, Long, Kritsotaki, 2016; Villa, 2020), or illuminate individual trajectories through prosopography (Nabonnand, Rollet, 2012; Delpu 2015) will be appreciated. Contributions allowing a transnational and comparative perspective will also be welcome, to enrich the reflection on the role that women have played in the transformations of mental healthcare.
Bibliography
- Crook Sarah, “Patients, Practitioners, and Protestors: Feminist Sources and Approaches in the History
of Psychiatry”, in Chris Millard and Jennifer Wallis (eds), Sources in the History of Psychiatry, from
1800 to the present, Routledge 2022, 181-196.
- Delpu Pierre-Marie, “La prosopographie, une ressource pour l’histoire sociale”, Hypothèses, 18, 1,
2015, 263-274.
- Klein Alexandre, Guillemain Hervé et Thifault Marie-Claude (eds), La fin de l’asile? Histoire de la
déshospitalisation psychiatrique dans l’espace francophone au XXe siècle, Presses universitaires de
Rennes, 2018.
- Kritsotaki Despo, Long Vicky e Matthew Smith (eds), Deinstitutionalisation and After. Post-War
Psychiatry in the Western World, Palgrave-Macmillan, 2016.
- Rollet Laurent e Nabonnand Philippe, Les uns et les autres : biographies et prosopographies en histoire
des sciences, Presses Universitaires de Nancy, 2012.
- Villa Renzo, Geel, la città dei matti. L’affidamento familiare dei malati mentali: sette secoli di storia,
Carocci, 2020.
Proposed articles could explore the following themes:
• Redefinition of gender relations in the deinstitutionalisation phase
• Mental illness and non-segregationist experiences seen through a gender
perspective
• Women's contribution to redefining the status of psychological sciences
• Deinstitutionalisation process: which chronologies?
• Oral histories and memory paths of deinstitutionalisation from a gender perspective
Paper proposals for original and unpublished articles in Italian, French, English or Spanish,
must be 3,000 characters-long (400 words) and must be sent to the editors of the issue
Marianna Scarfone (mscarfone@unistra.fr), Marica Setaro (marica.setaro@gmail.com) and
Martina Salvante (martina.salvante@nottingham.ac.uk) by 29 February 2024.
They must contain an indication of the sources used and some bibliographical references
and be accompanied by a short bio of the author.
The selection of the pieces for publication will take place by 31 March 2024.
Articles selected for publication must not exceed 50,000 characters (8,000 words), including
spaces and footnotes, and must be returned to the editors by 20 June 2024.
The texts will be submitted for editorial and peer review. Publication of issue 2/2024 of the
journal is scheduled for December 2024.
