Paper short abstract:

Drawing on recent ethnographic material, I will reflect on the notion of ‘madness’ in relation to the ordinary, in the context of NGO-initiated, community-based mental health self-help groups in the zongo communities of Accra. I will do this by drawing on the microhistory of two sisters who were born in a well-known family house. The paper will show how engaging different infrastructures of care strongly contribute to shaping the perception of ordinariness or, conversely, madness, and can hence unclench processes of unmaking madness.

Paper long abstract:

Drawing on recent and raw ethnographic material, I will reflect on the notion of ‘madness’ in relation to the ordinary, in the context of NGO-initiated, community-based mental health self-help groups in the zongo communities of Accra. I will do this by drawing on the microhistory of two sisters who were born in a well-known family house, and whose lives were suddenly disrupted by similar mental troubles. Their intimate circles responded with very different gestures of care and, consequently, the sisters’ life trajectories unfolded along almost opposite tracks. I use these two very diverse life stories as a lens to descend into the history of mental health care in the zongos, where institutional care is, or rather was in the days of the sisters’ first troubles, (close to) non-existent, while today, the kin-based care infrastructures are semi-formalized with the help of NGOs and community leaders.

Engaging different infrastructures of care fed into the different ways in which the sisters came to be perceived by their community: one sister is considered ‘normal’, while the other one is labelled ‘mad’. I claim that the intimate infrastructures of care (family, neighbours, kin, community) strongly contribute to shaping the perception of ordinariness or, conversely, madness, and can hence unclench processes of unmaking madness.