Quandaries in a psy history-in-progress: With psychopolitics, everyday psychiatries

PTSD experimentalities, and schizophrenics tallied in a crossborder, postgenocidal zone (S. Kivu-Rwanda)

Nancy Rose Hunt, History, U of Florida

I will share elements from a work-in-progress, which is thinking madness, catastrophe, and psychiatric practice in Bukavu, DR Congo and larger fields (conflict zones, mining fields, and Kagame’s Rwanda). Six months of late 2019 field work yielded many stories, puzzles, holes, and a large archive of joint-authored ethnographic writing. I import concepts from Frantz Fanon, Karl Jaspers, and Ernesto Martino. Many other archives may be found from the two Kivus and Rwanda – including the writings of PTSD psychologists. How to broaden my “field” beyond Bukavu without risking life or losing access to the Kigali airport are basic quandaries. Also present are questions about time, temporalities and whether to take on a deeper history of this curious city – once a colonial paradise, long perched among monarchies, mountains, Africa’s eight largest and a potentially explosive lake, sitting on a rift valley, and Congo’s decolonizations.