Paper short abstract:

This presentation will focus on two experimental methods, 'mapping' and the use of fiction, applied in my dissertation project about power structures in contemporary psychiatric care.

Paper long abstract:

In this presentation, I will discuss two experimental methods applied in my dissertation project concerning psychiatric care units. One of these methods is 'mapping', in which research participants (staff and patients) have drawn maps of the care unit where the field study was undertaken, followed by them describing their thoughts behind the drawings. Psychiatric care is an arena of both direct and subtle power relations, and in my presentation I will emphasise how the ethnographer can gain knowledge of power with mapping as method. Also, I will discuss fiction as an analytical tool for understanding psychiatry. Using the movie One Flew Ower the Cuckoo´s Nest as an example, I will highlight how fiction has a central role in our cultural understanding of psychiatry, and how fiction is therefore something that the ethnographer needs to relate to in the process of writing.