Imperial Bedlam: Institutions of Madness in Colonial Southwest Nigeria (review)

Imperial Bedlam: Institutions of Madness in Colonial Southwest Nigeria. By Jonathan Sadowsky (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1999) 169 pp. $45.00 cloth $16.95 paper

This important book offers illuminating insights into the history of insanity in colonial Nigeria. The author focuses on the histories of two asylums, the Yaba "lunatic asylum" in Lagos and the Aro Mental Hospital in Abeokuta. He argues that from these institutions, it is possible to "fan out" to explore "the struggles within the colonial state over the use of asylums, negotiations in colonial society about the definitions of insanity, the processes which led to confinement and release, and the formation of a specific psychiatric discourse" (9). Sadowsky sets out to examine how, when, and why Africans were defined as insane, and the ways in which definitions of insanity were related to the political context of colonialism. He does not argue that colonialism "caused" insanity, but that the content and expression of "madness" reflected the pressures, stresses, and strains brought about by colonial rule.

This is, in short, a social history of insanity. In this respect, the author pays close attention to the actual content of the delusions of the mentally ill, drawing on patient case files and histories. Sadowsky demonstrates that the "ravings" of these patients are important historical sources, and that they can be used as objects of social analysis. According to Sadowsky, the social context of colonialism fostered the development of certain kinds of delusions, especially delusions of persecution. Furthermore, he suggests that mental illnesses could threaten the everyday world of the colonizers because they drew attention to the structures and contradictions of colonial power. Actions that threatened colonial ideology could be defined as "mad," and thus served to reconfirm the "normalcy" of the colonial order in the minds of European doctors and officials. The preoccupation and ideologies of colonial medical authorities thus reflected the anxieties, concerns, and insecurities of the colonizers themselves.

Sadowsky concentrates on insanity as a social process. Although he does not deny the reality of mental illness, he argues that "madness" and "normalcy" must be viewed as part of a broader continuum. The insane "occupy a position on a spectrum containing the normal and the pathological" (51). They are products of specific political and social circumstances that must be contextualized historically. Indeed, the author notes that "the content [of delusions] repeatedly referred to specifics of Nigerian colonial history: religious conversion, foreign domination, the changing justice system . . . and the struggle for independence (115)." Likewise, his close attention to the content of the delusions of Nigerian mental patients allows him to transcend the stark dichotomy between the "traditional" and the "modern."

In this regard, he takes issue with both the opponents and supporters of psychiatric labeling theory (and whether mental illness was "real" or "constructed"), arguing that the real debate must center on the "ways [mental illness] is produced in particular historical formations" (112). Drawing on the sociology of Horwitz, Sadowsky places colonial asylums on a spectrum from "custodial and coercive" to "supportive and therapeutic." ¹ The history of institutions and madness in Nigeria demonstrates that colonial psychiatric practice was crudely coercive, given the cross-cultural barriers and different perceptions of social relations held by colonial medical authorities and African patients. Subtler forms of social control and therapeutic practice evolved only after independence. Western medical discourse was not internalized to any great extent by Africans. Thus, Sadowsky questions the degree and extent of the transformative (or hegemonic) power that the colonial state possessed, concurring with recent literature that stresses the limits of colonial power and persuasiveness.

The faults of this book are few. It is unfortunate that the author was unable to conduct more oral interviews. They might have further enriched the archival sources that he used. The chapters hang together somewhat loosely, and the author's ideas and themes are not always carried forcefully or successfully throughout the entire book. Nonetheless, this book is...