Colonial Madness: Psychiatry in French North Africa

Beginning with the origins of psychiatry as a field of study, this book focuses on the language and ideology behind mental health and its management as well as the inherent racism found in the example of French North Africa.

Keller asks how an advanced, sophisticated medical field, at the cutting edge of technology and science, can also be inherently racist. He puts forward the idea of “colonial dehumanization,” the tendency of psychiatrists from mainland France to treat citizens of its colonies as less than human and as test subjects, and the implications that the psychiatric field not only worked within the confines of a racist cultural definition but simultaneously perpetuated and legitimized this racial construct by encoding the psychiatric field of study with these preexisting social norms. By looking at psychiatry in a wider historical context, he attempts to come to a clear understanding of the psychological field of study.

Keller delves into the origins of psychological reform in French colonies in the 20th century, looking at the state of psychological institutions and patients in the Maghreb – Tunisia, Morocco, and Algeria. Because the system in Europe was in decline and near crisis, the colonies seemed like the perfect place to institute sweeping reforms, almost a blank slate on which to avoid the flaws of the existing system. Keller then tracks the way these new institutions worked, the studies done on patients, and the knowledge that was produced from the institutions, after which he moves on to a look at Frantz Fanon and the resistance to the institution of psychological study.

From there, Keller widens his scope to look at psychiatry in relation to France and North Africa, rounding off his study with a conclusion that looks at the move from asylums and institutional psychiatry to a chemical-based community psychiatry.

Overall, a thorough study of colonial psychiatric development and institutional racism.