Madness, Bureaucracy and Gender in Mumbai, India

Annika Strauss is a Postdoctoral research and teaching fellow at the Department for Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Münster, Germany. Until recently she was a project coordinator of a community health project that collaboratively developed disease preventive measures for vulnerable segments of the population in Bochum (Ruhr area).

“The cases in this book are wonderful, rich and full of complexities … They are the heart of the book and offer insights into diverse lives and resonant themes, especially related to gender, marriage, queer lives and kin dynamics.” • Sarah Pinto, Tufts University“The book offers an excellent ethnography and an original analysis of several challenges and dilemmas faced by mental health workers and long stay patients in institutionalized psychiatry in contemporary India. I very much enjoyed reading the book, especially the author’s self-reflexive approach and positioning in the field.” • Helene Basu, University of Münster

• IllustrationsAcknowledgementsMap 0.1Introduction: Indian Psychiatric Spaces and Mad NarrativesChapter 1. Ethnographic Research in Psychiatry: Ethical Contemplations and Sensorial EngagementsChapter 2. Everyday Routines, Life and Solicitudes in AshaChapter 3. Resisting the Uniform: Social Distinctions and Hierarchies in the WardsChapter 4. A Machine for the Production of Inscriptions: Practices of Paperworkin AshaChapter 5. Negotiations and Imaginations in the Context of Discharge and RehabilitationChapter 6. ‘This Hospital is Not Good’: What a Psychiatric Patient Can Tell Us about Psychiatric Culture?Chapter 7. Being Gay and Feeling Female: Queer Voices from Indian PsychiatryConclusionReferencesIndex