Social construction of mental illness in colonial Tanganyika government interventions and popular Perceptions and responses, 1920-1960
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Date
2015
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Publisher
University of Dar es Salaam
Abstract
The main objective of this project was to examine the ways in which mental illness was perceived and handled at the level of the colonial regime and the populace at large in Mainland Tanzania between 1920 and 1960. The study employs social constructionism as a theory to analyze data from archival, interview and published sources. It is argued that not only do social factors determine the understanding of illness and measures against it but, equally importantly, utilization of constructed illness is made to serve social and political ends. Colonial authorities constructed mental illness on a racial basis, which served to justify racially biased colonial interventions in respect of mental illness. This experience hindered the creation of an appropriate environment and forms of resource allocation that would foster delivery of appropriate care for mental health patients in colonial territories such as Tanganyika. Colonial authorities laid regulations which empowered correctional institutions such as the judiciary, the police and prisons to handle mental health patients before they were delivered to mental hospitals. Moreover, colonial mental hospitals were inadequate and unsanitary, characterized by acute shortage of professionals. As a result, African mental health patients were subjected to maltreatment and attacks of infectious diseases which killed many of them. Under these circumstances, colonial mental health services did not win much acceptance from the majority of local peoples who retained their traditional perceptions and forms of treatment of mental illness. Despite that, the British colonial government in Tanganyika can be credited for establishing two mental health institutions which are still in use.
Description
Available in print form, East Africana Collection, Dr. Wilbert Chagula Library, Class mark (THS EAF RC451.T34A44)
Keywords
Mental illness, Tanganyika, Politics and Government, History
Citation
Ali, A.S. (2015) Tanganyika government interventions and popular Perceptions and responses, 1920-1960, Master dissertation, University of Dar es Salaam, Dar es Salaam