Hysteria: A South Asian History of Global Medicine. Issue 1 (2nd January 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Pinto, Sarah
• Is Part Of: South Asia. Volume 45:Issue 1(2022)
• Page Start: 113
• Page End: 129
• Publication Date: 2022-01-02
• Subjects: Colonialism -- hysteria -- knowledge -- medicine -- translation; South Asia -- Periodicals; South Asia -- Study and teaching -- Periodicals; 954.005
• DOI: 10.1080/00856401.2022.2014154
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0085-6401

Abstract

Abstract: Ways of mapping mental illness in the world involve stories about history, time and qualities of knowledge. This paper explores the history of hysteria as a South Asian story. With a South Asia-centred history of the contemporary critical concept of cultural translation, this paper observes not only hysteria's long South Asian history, but the colonial emergence of a defining narrative—the equation of hysteria to spirit possession, a naturalised conceptual arrangement that superimposed upon a long history of medical encounters racialised ideas about epistemological difference.