|
| |
Winter 1999
HOME
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
half of SOLAS to tame the wildly ringing
telephones for three hours at the annual KUNM Fall Campaign fundraiser. I would like to
thank Chad Black, Jeannie Ellis, Doug Hecock, Patrick Staib and Megan Thornton for their
participation. In addition, a number of us were able to attend the local Guatemala
Partners tamale dinner fundraiser for the victims of Hurricane Mitch. Due to scheduling
problems, our volunteer project with Habitat for Humanity has been postponed until the
spring, so look out for more information about that next semester. And get your hammers
ready!
I would also like to remind everyone that we have a Latin American Studies computer
pod available for use between 8 am and 5 pm, M-F. We have four IBM compatible computers
that can be used for word processing and email and internet access. We have been trying to
work out some of the glitches with these systems. If you notice a problem, please let me
know. If the door to the pod is locked, you may borrow a key from Frances at the LAII,
upon showing a picture ID.
I am looking forward to working with all of you again next semester. During the spring
SOLAS is going to focus on facilitating more student participation in the organization by
holding more frequent organizational meetings; organizing group volunteer projects;
showing Latin American movies at the LAII; and holding speaker panels on current topics
relating to Latin America. As always, please pass along any feedback or suggestions you
have to me by email, telephone or in the SOLAS box at the LAII. Have a fun and safe
holiday.
Libby Fisher, SOLAS President
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I hope that everyone else is
scrabbling to get their final papers together just like I am. The end of the semester
always comes too fast and graduate school has been no exception for me. I find
myself looking forward to the all sacred finals week, when I will just have a few exams to
waddle through without the added class work added to the pile.
This time around Las Noticias showcases
the work of two of our Ph.D. candidates, Tiffany Thomas and Jonathan Ablard, both from the
History department. I was really impressed by the quality of both of these pieces and hope
they will inspire some of you to use your break to get up to writing something for the
February issue. Or not.
Lastly, UNM is Sponsoring RMCLAS this year in Santa Fe, from January 12-15,
at the Eldorado hotel. I have been working diligently on this project and hope that UNM
has a good turnout. After all, we are co-sponsoring and many of our students and faculty
are presenting. We can arrange transport if there is interest.
There is no "issue question" this time because very few people wrote in.
Each of you should expect a personal e-mail from me next quarter. That's it for this
issue, have a great break and I'll see you in class.
Kim Nolan, Editor
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
We now have a professor who is
teaching Latin American course content in the Honors program. Dr. Celia Chavez López was
born in Argentina, received her degree in History from Universidad Nacional de San Juan
(Argentina), and her Ph.D. in Latin American History from Universidad de
Sevilla, Spain. After living five years in Spain, she moved to the United States in
1992. Since 1996, Dr. Chavez López has taught in the University Honors
Program. Her background is in Latin American History, so she teaches honors
seminars on Latin America. The Honors Program provides general education courses at higher
levels for motivated undergraduates. The University Honors Program is an interdisciplinary
undergraduate program, and the classes tend to be interdisciplinary as well, drawing
from history, but also political science, women's studies, literature and so on. Dr.
Chavez López's classes introduce undergraduates to coursework in Latin American Studies,
which hopefully generates interest for the program for students in the process of choosing
a major.
The class she will teach this Spring is:
University Honors 302-008
" Elusive Justice: Human Rights in Latin America"
Tuesdays / 10:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. Room 152 (Honors Center)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Linda Hall's new book, Tangled Destinies: Latin America and the United States,
which she co-authored with Don M. Coerver of TCU, has just appeared from the University of
New Mexico Press. It covers US-Latin American relations from U.S. independence
through the present, with special chapters on two recent domestic/international problems:
Latin American immigration to the United States, and the traffic in illegal drugs.
Dr. Hall emphasizes the community effort in putting the book together. Blair Woodard and
Diata Rhodes (MA/LAS 1998) helped research Point-Counterpoint sections in
each chapter, which present contemporary voices from both Latin America and the United
States on controversial issues. Blair served as photograph editor for the
volume. Professor David Craven, from the Department of Art and Art History (and who
also serves on the ICLAS Committee) provided several photographs. MA/LAS graduates
(1999) Douglas Hecock and Tiffany Thomas also supplied photographs, as did UNM History
Ph.D. Michael E. Stanfield, who currently teaches at the University of San Francisco. Dr.
Hall also thanks all those students who have given her ideas and help on specific aspects
of the book. The volume is dedicated to Richard E. Greenleaf, longtime head of the
Latin American Center at Tulane University and himself a UNM History Ph.D.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Las Noticias Estudiantiles
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
REFORM AND CRISIS IN ARGENTINE CUSTODIAL PSYCHIATRY,
1900-1983.
JONATHAN ABLARD WRITES ON ARGENTINA
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 uring June of 1999, I traveled to Buenos
Aires with the generous support of a Latin American Field Research Grant. This was my
second research trip to
Argentina to conduct archival research for my dissertation on the
social history of psychiatric care in twentieth century Argentina.
My dissertation, "Reform and Crisis in
Argentine Custodial Psychiatry, 1900-83," examines how twentieth-century
Argentines became public psychiatric hospital patients, what happened to them in the
hospitals, and how many of them managed to gain their release. At the heart of the story
lie the Hospicio de las Mercedes and the Hospital Nacional de Alienadas,
(today called the Borda and Moyano), which were founded in the mid nineteenth century, and
continue to operate to this day, as sex segregated custodial institutions in a mixed
industrial and residential neighborhood of Buenos Aires.
Although my work focuses on these two institutions, I also look at the wider legal,
social, professional, and bureaucratic context of psychiatric hospitals. During this trip
to Buenos Aires, I spent a great deal of time researching legal literature in the
University of Buenos Aires Law School, and also talking with judges and psychiatrists
about how psychiatric patients are supposed to be treated by the courts and what often
actually happens. These sources have generally confirmed the more anecdotal information
that I had collected earlier from judicial archive material, and particularly civil
insanity proceedings. In sum, Argentine psychiatric patients' civil rights were routinely
violated during the twentieth century through a combination of institutional neglect,
legal loopholes, and complicity of families, neighbors and local police. What were the
results of this situation? First, everyday citizens could more easily use psychiatric
hospitalization for non-medical reasons. For example, it seems that it was commonplace to
deposit unruly domestic servants and "difficult" wives in such institutions. On
the other hand, I have found evidence that some women were able to hospitalize alcoholic
and abusive husbands. Second, archival and newspaper and congressional reports all
indicate that many patients in public facilities simply "disappeared" into the
bureaucratic maze and thus delaying their release by months and even years.
Paradoxically, my research revealed that psychiatrists were deeply frustrated by this
state of affairs. Lack of clear legal codes and hospital regulations tended to weaken
their professional status. Indeed, these conclusions were particularly striking because
psychiatrists in Argentina up to the present suffer a terrible public reputation. Their
work is often associated with political authoritarianism, and much of the public view
state-run psychiatric institutions as human warehouses where patients suffer
over-medication and neglect at the hands of uncaring doctors.
Indeed, Argentina's public psychiatric hospitals continue to be places of national shame,
where patients if nothing else suffer from neglect by staff and abandonment by society at
large. After spending time in several such institutions, I wondered why psychiatrists
themselves had been unable to effect lasting reform of their profession or its
institutions. Through good fortune, I managed to meet and interview participants of
various mental health reform movements from the 1960s. Such individuals as Wilbur Ricard
Grimson, Raúl Camino, and Pedro Herscovici attempted to both reform psychiatric practices
inside large state facilities and also to bring psychiatry and therapy out of the hospital
and into the broader community. Raúl Camino, for example, with the support of the
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
dictator Juan Carlos Onganía, established a
rural hospital for chronic psychiatric patients. The only doctor for over 300 patients,
Camino set out to establish a therapeutic community that would emphasize cooperation and
equality between doctors, staff, and patients. Camino led therapy sessions that involved
the entire hospital, and he also trained local campesinos
to serve as his assistants. The Camino experiment, as well as other projects, were
destroyed either during the military coup of 1976 or in the chaotic years that preceded
it. The enemies of reform were not just reactionary military people (indeed, many of
Argentina's most important reforms occurred under military regimes) but also conservative
elements within psychiatry who feared that a shift away from institutional care threatened
their livelihood and professional status.
Much of my work, and particularly my questions, have come from examining the present day
conditions of the mentally ill, both in and out of hospitals. Time spent in the principal
hospitals of Buenos Aires allowed me the opportunity to talk with staff, doctors and
patients about life inside the hospital. I also visited one of the most unusual radio
stations in the world, Radio Colifata, which broadcasts each Saturday from inside the
walls of the men's Hospital Borda. Patients broadcast messages to family and friends, sing
songs, debate the virtues and shortcomings of various soccer teams, and discuss politics.
It is striking that this innovative project comes not from the administration of the
hospital, but from community volunteers. Indeed, the hospital has several times tried to
shut down the radio station, which is seen as subversive to the therapeutic regimen. I can
testify that Radio Colifata represents one of the few bright spots in what is otherwise a
very gray and sad place.
I also visited the Hospital Interzonal Psiquiátrico "Colonia Domingo Cabred,"
located in the countryside of the province of Buenos Aires. I had presented a paper in
abstentia at the centennial of the hospital just prior to my arrival in Argentina. As
compensation, I visited this unique rural facility and presented my findings to a group of
fifty patients, therapists and nurses. This group was particularly interested in the
comparative history of psychiatric care in the United States and Argentina. I should
mention that many Argentines are aware of the problems that unregulated
deinstitutionalization brought to the mentally ill in the United States. The U.S. serves
as a cautionary example as Argentines try to decide what to do with their large
psychiatric institutions. I also spent time touring this historic hospital that, in
contrast to other hospitals, was a relatively cheerful and open place. Sadly, soon after
my departure from Argentina, I received news that the director had been forced to resign
due to problems associated with upcoming provincial elections.
One of the principal conclusions of my work is that while the power of Argentine
psychiatrists to label and define "deviant" persons and behaviors had a profound
impact on women and men, the fate of Argentina's psychiatric patients was also strongly
shaped by the way medical and legal systems operated on a day to day basis. Likewise, the
deterioration of the hospitals' physical plants and understaffing also affected the
medical, social, and legal status of patients. Nevertheless, despite their many flaws, the
hospitals also continued to serve a vital social function, providing a degree of shelter
and care to many whose families and communities had abandoned them. In conclusion, the
history of psychiatric care in twentieth-century Argentina offers a privileged position
from which to consider the complex interactions between state functionaries, everyday
citizens, and medical and social ideas about family and nation.
In conclusion, I owe a debt of gratitude to all the Argentines, famous and forgotten, that
have helped me in this project. Conversations with patients long abandoned by family
members and psychiatrists who have tried to change the system have proved invaluable. I
was also helped by the fact that porteños, and again I speak generally, are
fascinated with a whole range of mental health issues, including both large psychiatric
institutions and individual psycho-therapies. Thus, I was never lacking in conversations
about either my project or some related topic.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
HISTORY
ON THEIR OWN TERMS
A Review of Richard Price's
First Time: The Historical Vision of an Afro-American People
(Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983)
Tiffany A. Thomas
Department of History, UNM
 Author's Note: This
book recently inspired a lively discussion and debate in the "Race, Ethnicity and
National
Identity" seminar and might likewise prove interesting for students of Latin American
Studies, History and/or Anthropology. Price employs a unique methodological approach to a
question many of us grapple with on a
Regular basis-how best to present the lives of subaltern peoples.
On the opening page to his chapter entitled "Of Speakers/On Readers,"
Richard Price quotes A. R. Radcliffe-Brown: "In the primitive societies studied by
social anthropologists there are no historical records."1 Price's book First
Time is an open challenge to the assumption that "primitive" people have no
historical records, and the Saramaka maroons of the heavily forested interior of the
Republic of Suriname serve as his case study. Vivid communal recollections of events
ranging from the escape of the "First-Time" people from Dutch-operated
plantations in the 1680s through their emancipation in 1762 provide the threads in a
complicated historical tapestry that defies the skepticism of scholars like
Radcliffe-Brown.
Price contends that the stories, songs, and other oral memories of the Saramaka people are
their "historical records," and provide the very form and content of the
Saramaka historical vision. That their "records" are preserved in the memories
of the elder men of the community (Saramaka women are largely excluded from this process)
and not in written form attests to Price's observation that the Saramaka "are acutely
conscious of living in history." 2 Rather than serve as mere repositories
of historical knowledge, Saramaka folklorists form a critical link in a chain of men and
women--past, present and future--who shape(d) Saramaka history through their deeds,
actions and story-telling.
Price's study utilizes the historical memory of the Saramaka as a means for challenging
stereotypes about "primitive" societies, and thus coincides with other
postmodern endeavors to give "voice to the voiceless." What makes Price's work
unique, however, is that in addition to illustrating how the Saramaka people perceive
their own history, he also links their expressions of that history to Dutch accounts
detailed in colonial documents. This comparison allows Price to corroborate information
presented in Saramaka stories. It is interesting to note that his decision to investigate
these colonial documents was at least partially motivated by his relative exclusion from
the process of sharing historical knowledge within Saramaka culture.
In the opening chapter to his book, Price relates the often-rocky trajectory of his
research. After spending two years in the mid-1960s in Saramaka carrying out ethnographic
fieldwork with his wife, Price discovered that only one subject was explicitly
forbidden--"First Time" (the phase of Saramaka history stretching roughly to
1800). 3 As an "outsider," Price was not initially encouraged to pursue
information about this "singularly circumscribed, restricted and guarded" period
of Saramaka history.4 However, after he traveled to the Netherlands (1977-78) and
gleaned knowledge about "First Time" events from written sources housed at the Algeman
Rijksarchief, Price was in "a position to offer Saramaka historians a most
precious gift, new information about their own early past."5
Upon his return to Saramaka in the late-1970s, Price was able to direct specific questions
about "First Time" to his informants, thus eschewing (at least partially) their
attempts to "mask" historical knowledge. Price's archival research not only
allowed him to ask the "right" questions of his often reluctant informants, but
it also granted him a degree of legitimacy. In a society where perseverance is the price
one must pay for historical knowledge, and where knowledge is power, Price's archival
research stood as proof of his commitment to the study of "First Time," and thus
permitted him to conduct the oral interviews contained in his book.
The general structure of the book--with translated fragments of Price's interviews at the
top of the page and
(Continued on
page 8)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
