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Paper short abstract

This paper examines ideas about the mental health of Banyarwanda immigrants and refugees in Kampala, 1951-1972

Paper long abstract

In 1951 a survey of patients at Mulago Mental Hospital, Kampala, revealed that Banyarwanda immigrants comprised the second largest in-patient group at the hospital. Over the next two decades, immigrants and refugees from Rwanda became the subject of investigations into the relationship between migration, mental ill-health, and the 'African mind'. While at first psychiatrists argued that the Banyarwanda, like other Africans, held a form of 'psychotic immunity' in their 'natural environment' that was disrupted by migration and urbanization, by the early 1970s these migrants were regarded as representative of 'a disintegrated society'. Using interviews, reports, and research papers from Makerere Medical School, Butabika Hospital, and Mulago Mental Hospital, this paper examines ideas about the mental health of Banyarwanda immigrants and refugees in Kampala, 1951-1972. It focuses in particular on how mental health was related to living environments, behaviour, and race, and the implications this had for ideas about changing society in East Africa.