A tale of two bureaucracies
Asylum and lunacy law paperwork
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12592137 |
|---|---|
| Authors | James Moran (0000-0003-0065-9035, University of Prince Edward Island, corresponding author), James J Moran (0000-0001-9081-9017, University of Prince Edward Island, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2018 |
| Volume | 22 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 419-436 |
| Publication date | 2018-07-03 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Rethinking History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1364-2529 • E-ISSN: 1470-1154 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/13642529.2018.1486957 |
| OpenAlex | W2887740626 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 29 |
This article offers a comparative analysis of two well-developed bureaucratic systems at work in the production of files connected to the response to madness in colonial contexts. The first, more familiar and well known to those who have dug into the archival records to write about the history of madness, is the bureaucratic legacy of the lunatic asylum.The second, less familiar bureaucratic system is lunacy investigation law. This was a body of law had a much longer file-generating history than that of the asylum, but it has drawn much less attention from those interested in the history of madness. Although this ‘tale of two bureaucracies’ is one of overlap between the paperwork of the asylum and of lunacy law, the therapeutic turn in approaches to madness seems to have contributed to the marginalization of the legal, and to an over privileging of the medical. The recent digitization of paperwork has partially rescued legal bureaucracies of madness from obscurity. So too has recent interest in the paperwork of legal responses to madness by some historians. This article considers how taking the paperwork of lunacy law into account leads to a rethinking of the history of madness
Bureaucracy · Legal history · Lunatic · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Historical and Scientific Studies · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Historical Psychiatry and Medical Practices · History · Law
Punishment and welfare
The myth of mental illness
American Notes for General Circulation
A Space of Their Own
Insanity, Identity and Empire
Fous, prodigues et ivrognes
Colonial Psychiatry and the African Mind
Imperial Bedlam
The discovery of the asylum
The Canada ‘Blue Books’ and the Administrative Capacity of the Canadian State, 1822–67
Schooling and Scholars in Nineteenth-Century Ontario
Law, history, colonialism
The Social Organization of Early Industrial Capitalism
Salvage and Destruction
Getting Out of the Asylum
States of Mind
Legal Madness in the Nineteenth Century
Homes for the Mad
Changing Faces of Madness
Insanity, Race and Colonialism
The Demon of Writing
Museums of Madness
| Citations per year | 0.2 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2021 - 2021 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |