Bodily practices as vehicles for dehumanization in an institution for mental defectives
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Date
2012
Authors
Malacrida, Claudia
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
M D P I A G
Abstract
This article analyzes the processes of dehumanization that occurred in the
Michener Center, a total institution for the purported care and training of people deemed to
be mental defectives1 that operated in Alberta, Canada. I report on qualitative interviews
with 22 survivors, three ex-workers, and the institutional archival record, drawing out the
ways that dehumanization was accomplished through bodily means and the construction of
embodied otherness along several axes. First, inmates’ bodies were erased or debased as
unruly matter out of place that disturbed the order of rational modernity, a move that meant
inmates were not seen as deserving or even requiring of normal human consideration.
Spatial practices within the institution included panopticism and isolation, constructing
inmates as not only docile but as unworthy of contact and interaction. Dehumanization was
also seen as necessary to and facilitative of patient care; to produce inmates as subhuman
permitted efficiency, but also neglect and abuse. Finally, practices of hygiene and
sequestering the polluting bodies of those deemed mentally defective sustained and
justified dehumanization. These practices had profound effects for inmates and also for
those charged with caring for them.
Description
Open access
Keywords
Dehumanization , Total institutions , Foucault , Panopticon , Matter out of place , Docile bodies , Institutional abuse , Eugenics , Michener Center
Citation
Malacrida, C. (2012). Bodily practices as vehicles for dehumanization in an institution for mental defectives. Societies, 2, 286-301. doi:10.3390/soc2040286