On dancing in the rain : an ethnographic study of the deinstitutionalization of mental health care and agency in Malta

Abstract

The following work will take an ethnographic approach to the deinstitutionalization of mental health in Malta. Based on ethnographic fieldwork within a hostel for men recovering from mental illnesses, the text will discuss the relationship between the hostel and the state run mental hospital, the shifting understandings of health, illness and cure. Using ethnographic insights, the text elaborates on the operation and conceptual limitations of the hostel. Most prominently, concerning the hostel’s approach to care. The notion of the resident as 'client' originates in the understanding of mental illness as a circumstantial event, requiring service-oriented self-alteration. On the other hand, 'character' is a moral project requiring alteration of the self. This and other conundrums sheds light on current directions of deinstitutionalization in Malta.