Papering over madness
Accountability and resistance in colonial asylum files: a New Zealand case study
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12591982 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Barbara Brookes (University of Otago, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2018 |
| Volume | 22 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 356-374 |
| Publication date | 2018-07-03 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Rethinking History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1364-2529 • E-ISSN: 1470-1154 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/13642529.2018.1486955 |
| OpenAlex | W2887962959 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 12 |
Through an examination of New Zealand legislation governing lunacy and the files from the Seacliff Asylum, this article argues how paperwork served to uphold an elusive ideal of a compassionate society. Paper, in the form of letters, reports and forms, was sent up and down the country in order to prevent wrongful confinement and to monitor costs and cure rates. Paper provided for patients allowed them to challenge their incarceration, sometimes successfully. That maze of paperwork, generated for both statutory and institutional administrative ends, mirrored the disorder of those confined within the institution. The curating of digital exhibitions of such materials flattens out their complexity and smooths over what were often disjointed narratives
Accountability · Art · Art history · Business · Colonialism · Exhibition · Ideal (ethics · Institution · Legislation · Literature · Narrative · Order (exchange · Political science · Resistance (ecology · Sociology · Statutory law · Historical and Scientific Studies · Historical Psychiatry and Medical Practices · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law
Social Order/Mental Disorder
The Power of Knowledge
Insanity, Identity and Empire
Documents and Bureaucracy
In My Power
Insanity, identity and empire
Life in the Asylum
The regulation of British colonial lunatic asylums and the origins of colonial psychiatry, 1860–1864
Liberty and Lunacy
Exhibiting madness in museums
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,2 |
| Citation span | 2021 - 2021 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |