Pinel in the Maghreb: Liberation, Confinement, and Psychiatric Reform in French North Africa

For early twentieth century French psychiatrists, the colonies of Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco appeared as crucial sites for innovation. Citing Pinel's liberation of the insane during the French Revolution as a precedent, colonial psychiatrists preached of their capacity to advance France's "civilizing mission" by delivering the insane from their suffering. Yet colonial renovation programs also drew them to scrutinize the failings of their own common practices. Psychiatrists saw their field in a state of crisis, marked by overcrowded asylums and outdated therapeutic concepts. Attempts to modernize colonial terrains thus also aimed at re creating a discipline that had fallen into decline.