The Place of Psychiatry in Colonial and Early Postcolonial Zimbabwe

Abstract

The history of psychiatry in Zimbabwe is interwoven with histories of struggle: struggles to impose a colonial social order, struggles to resist and do away with that social order, struggles to forge a new nation. What follows here is an exploration into the ways in which mental illness was known and treated in colonial Zimbabwe and how disparate social orders, colonial states and newly independent nations, have sought to define, contain, and repair disorders of the mind and social body. By examining how discourses and practices pertaining to mental illness have overlapped with those of power and authority, I expose how the discipline of psychiatry and the place of the asylum are important sites of struggle and contestation over space (the body, the hospital, and the nation) and meaning (What is mental illness/disorder anyway? What does it mean to recover?). When Zimbabwe achieved its independence in 1980, a new national narrative was forged. The treatment and management of those deemed insane, the nature of the spaces set aside for them, became part of the collective memory of pain and injustices and provided a point of demarcation between them/before and us/now. The actions of the first black Minister of Health, at the moment of independence from colonial rule, illustrate this point. For Dr. Herbert Ushewokunze, the state of mental health care was both a powerful signifier and a cause for concern. Having been overall commander of the Army Medical Corps for the Zimbabwe