In medieval and early modern literature, people with psychological disabilities are commonly represented as nuisances, monsters, and pitiable wretches. This ableist paradigm is partly attributable to the fact that ‘mad’ characters evoke economic anxieties rooted in the socioeconomic climate of the societies in which the respective texts are created. Fictional ‘madmen’ are used as symbols of or scapegoats for economic problems such as rising poverty, price fluctuations, wealth inequality, and evolving inheritance systems. This exacerbates a prevailing belief that the psychologically disabled are undeserving of respect and care, or even that they are less than human. My goal in this dissertation is to document occurrences of this paradigm and analyse how they contribute to the cultural degradation and dehumanisation of people with psychological disabilities. Applying analytical frameworks provided by disability theorists regarding neurodiversity and sanism to medieval and early modern literature, this dissertation will attempt to expand and invigorate the conversation around disabled people’s cultural history. Each chapter finds the seed of its primary focus in scripture – for example, I examine Herod when discussing madness’s effect on the domestic realm and Noah when discussing madness in old age – and each proceeds in a generally chronologically fashion from scripture to medieval literature and finally early modern literature. The medieval texts I analyse are diverse and range from religious poems such as John Gower’s Confessio Amantis (c. 14th century) to the chivalric romances of Chrétien de Troyes. Likewise, the early modern texts under scrutiny include Ben Jonson’s city comedies and Shakespeare’s tragic Timon of Athens (1607). The wide-ranging nature of the texts I examine is intended to indicate that the ableist notions being unpacked are not limited by genre or period

Dans le champ de la psychopathologie infanto-juvénile, un ensemble de comportements hétérogènes, tels que la désobéissance, le vol, le mensonge, l’agressivité verbale et physique sont regroupés sous le vocable « troubles du comportement et de la conduite ». La question de l’origine de cette catégorie utilisée pour nommer certains types de transgressions interroge. Tout d’abord, cette thèse propose de suivre ce terme nosographique dans sa singularité savante, ses sédimentations, sa temporalité historique et son inscription dans un régime discursif. C’est pourquoi, les travaux de Georges Heuyer, figure pionnière dans la structuration du champ de la psychiatrie infanto-juvénile, occupent une place prégnante dans cette thèse. Ensuite, il s’agit dans cette enquête de saisir, au plus près, la chaîne de désignation qui débute à l’école, passe par la Maison Départementale des Personnes Handicapées (MDPH), pour aboutir à l’Institut Thérapeutique Éducatif et Pédagogique (ITEP). Notre intérêt s’est porté sur le processus d’évaluation médico-administrative au sein des équipes pluridisciplinaires de la MDPH. Enfin, l’analyse conduite tend à mettre en évidence la façon dont la classification « troubles du comportement et de la conduite » retentit sur les représentations des personnes désignées. / In the field of child psychopathology, a set of diverse behaviors, like disobedience, theft, lying, and verbal and physical aggression, are grouped under the label “Behaviour and Conduct Disorders”. The question of the origins of the category used to name certain types of transgressions raised questions. The following thesis suggests to follow this nosographic term in its scholarly singularity, its sedimentations, its historical temporality and its inscription in a discursive regime. That is why, the work of Georges Heuyer, a pioneering figure in the structuration of the Child and Young Psychiatry field, occupies a significant position in this thesis. Then, it is in this investigation to seize, as close as possible, the name chain starting from the school, going through MDPH and ending at ITEP. Our interest was focused on the medico-administrative assessment process within multidisciplinary teams at the MDPH. Finally, the conducted analysis highlights the way the classification “behavior and conduct disorders” reverberated on the representations of the designated people.

Cette thèse propose d’interroger les formes historiques, sociales et institutionnelles de construction du handicap psychique. En partant du cas des ITEP de Gironde, elle s’interroge plus particulièrement sur les processus d’assignation des jeunes dans ces établissements et sur les arrière-plans (sociaux, familiaux…) qui concourent à leur désignation comme handicapés psychiques (loi de 2005). Mais alors que les regards s’orientent vers les conséquences des handicaps (pour les compenser), notre recherche étudie, a contrario, les racines du handicap psychique comme autant de verdicts cachés qui pèsent sur la potentialité d’être – ou non – orienté en ITEP. La thèse ouvre trois axes de recherche. Le premier, réalise un diagnostic historique. Cinq associations gestionnaires d’ITEP de Gironde sont étudiées, à partir d’entretiens menés avec les directeurs et les pères fondateurs de ces associations. Il s’agit de mettre en relation l’histoire de l’émergence du handicap psychique avec l’histoire du développement successif du tissu associatif girondin. Le deuxième axe consiste en une caractérisation sociale des jeunes d’ITEP à partir d’un recueil de données sociales dans chacun des 20 ITEP de la Gironde (965 jeunes étudiés). L’étude de l’agencement complexe des caractéristiques des jeunes d’ITEP montre qu’être handicapé psychique se pose en terme fort différents selon l’origine sociale des familles et éclaire une première forme d’assignation. Le troisième axe d’analyse s’appuie sur l’observation ethnographique du fonctionnement des Equipes Pluridisciplinaires d’Evaluation (EPE) à la MDPH de la Gironde durant une année. L’examen des procédures d’orientation mises en place, montre que le handicap psychique se construit entre troubles du psychisme et difficultés socio-familiales. La mise en relation de ces trois niveaux d’analyse, permet de mieux comprendre comment se construit le handicap psychique, les masques successifs qui invisibilisent les processus d’assignation et l’idéologie qui les légitime. En plus d’être exilés sur le seuil d’une vie ordinaire, les jeunes handicapés psychiques sont exilés sur le seuil d’un espace potentiel de représentation. / This thesis proposes to investigate the psychological disability construction, based on three axes: historical, social and institutional. Studying ITEP (Pedagogic and Educative Therapeutic Institute) from Gironde, we interrogated the assignation process of the teenagers in these facilities and their backgrounds (social, familial, etc) that leads them to be designed as psychologically disabled people (2005 law). Consequently, when the collective attention is focused on the consequences of being handicapped to compensate, we want to study the origins of psychological disability that conduct them – or not – to be oriented in an ITEP. First, we realized an historical diagnosis. We studied five organisations managing ITEP by interviewing their directors, in order to compare the historical beginning of psychological disabilities and the development of Gironde organisations. The second axe consists of a social characterisation of ITEP teenagers by studying social data in all 20 Gironde ITEP (a pool of 965 teenagers). The study of the complex arrangement of ITEP teenager characteristics show that being psychologically disabled is affected by family social origins, showing a first assignation form. The third analytic axis is an ethnographic observation about how the Multidisciplinary Evaluation Team (EPE) operates in Gironde MDPH during a year. The results of this orientation procedure show how psychological disabilities is built between psychic disorder and social-family difficulties. Linking these three analytic parts allows for a better understanding about how the psychological disability is constructed, all invisible steps of the assignation processes and what legitimates them. In addition to having difficulties living an ordinary life, all conditions are combined to prevent these psychologically disabled teenagers and their families to have a space dedicated to social representation.

The purpose of this study was to better understand howLSS-officials within several swedish municipalities understand and handles their discretion in regard to children and guardians who has a certain form of physical or mental disability. If or how those LSS-officials shape the services they are responsible for to help the families as a whole with their parental abilities. We will try to illustrate how the LSS-officials reflects upon the guardians ability to care for their children and how they assess the services they are able to provide in relation to those children and guardians needs. We have used qualitative method and semi-structured interviews in the study. To help analyze our material we have used Michael Lipsky’s theory about street-level bureaucracy as well as Roine Johansson’s criticism and attempt to refine the theory. Our results showed us that the LSS-officials we interviewed have varying discretion in their work with children and guardians with disabilities due to the swedish law that supports services for disability. Moreover we found that the LSS-officialshad trouble understanding how some available services could function in regards to different forms of disability. We also found that they sought different services such as parental guidance for the parents in their homes to improve the work with the children and guardians.

The understandings and treatments of the sexual rights of people with intellectual and psychological disabilities vary in different societies. However, one issue that is common in most societies is that this group of people experiences the highest rates of sexual violence and is regularly a-sexualized. Much attention has been paid to the increasingly visible issues of sexual violence in Latin America in a gendered and racial context, however recent scholarship has neglected to look at sexual violence in the context of people with disabilities. In this text, I aim to uncover how the human rights, and more specifically, sexual rights, are understood and treated for this highly marginalized group of people in Guatemala, a country that has endured heavy amounts of violence and trauma both contemporarily and historically. Through ethnographic fieldwork conducted at institutions for disability services in urban Guatemala, I paint a picture of how the contemporary social and political climate involving violence, nearly complete impunity for crimes, culturally engrained patriarchal norms and neoliberal policies affect this group of people who are often depoliticized through patronizing portrayals in media and the public arena. Using in depth investigations of Guatemalan law and observational work and interviews conducted in public government-funded institutions, NGOs and non-profit organizations and human rights organizations, I seek to reveal the paradigms within the disparate types of institutions for understanding and treating people with disabilities. By questioning the institutional perceptions and treatments of the sexuality and sexual abuse of people with intellectual and psychological disabilities, I seek to examine the different ways cognitive disability has been socially constructed in Guatemala and the different reasons behind this group's social abandonment and high rates of sexual violence towards them. This work problematizes medical and charity models utilized for understanding disability that have been implemented through law, institutional and public policies, and societal misconceptions. This research also challenges Western disability policies and conceptions that have been imposed in developing countries like Guatemala, and questions the possibility to create spaces of local disability rights activism in spite of high risk factors for violence and neoliberal policies that limit political protest. / text

Diss. (sammanfattning) Linköping :Univ., 2004. / Härtill 5 uppsatser.