Insanity, Difference, and Cross-Cultural Psychiatry
and stresses of modernization. As certain Africans acculturated to European standards and ways of life, the process actually caused madness (Vaughan, 108).
This theory, in part, resonated with Africans themselves. Franz Fanon, the psychiatrist and writer in Algeria, accused colonialism of creating a sort of internal division in Africans who had been educated or "acculturated." He argued that colonialism "produces mental pathology itself" (Sadowsky, 3).
Tsitsi Dangarembga's novel, Nervous Conditions, similarly places the blame for one character's eating disorder squarely on colonialism. The character is symbolically wasting away as a result of the disorder introduced into her life by colonialism. The main character of the novel develops a sort of bipolar personality disorder as she attempts to negotiate the separate spheres of her life: African rural culture and British boarding school, where her introduction to colonial education and cultural norms alienates her from her family.
So did colonialism cause certain types of madness? Can it be attributed to genetics alone? Was madness always simply a "perception" and never reality (a label to be slapped on people who were sufficiently "different")? As I mentioned before, the truth probably lies among all three ideas.
Of course, psychiatrists and medical practitioners will be concerned about what actually causes mental illness. Of course, different theories will arise and scholars and medical workers will split hairs over the facts. Of course, people who have been subjected to colonial rule, oppressive government, a harsh rupturing of their culture will experience many difficulties. But the question "did colonialism cause madness" itself is leading. How can we argue, after the fact, that a caused b? We'll never know unless we have another equation with which to compare it. One would have to compare the historical processes of madness in a colonized country with the historical processes of madness in a completely "pristine" culture, which had had no contact with the "stresses and strains" of "modernization"-an impossibility because as soon as the anthropologist or medical doctor arrived, they would be introducing modernity into the scenario. Besides, that same anthropologist or medical doctor would be dealing with the same problems that psychiatrists in Africa faced-culture shock, alienation, customs that will seem crazy even if they're perfectly normal.
Mental illness is probably caused by a variety of imperfectly understood things. Colonial psychiatric practice simply points out that medical practice is an evolving, growing thing-for which fact, we're all grateful.
For further reading
Imperial Bedlam: Institutions of Madness in
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