Dangerous Affairs. The rise of the dangerousness complex, psychiatric reform and the development of human rights in Europe, 1950-2000

• Applicant: Dr. Chantal Marazia
• Subject Area: History of Science ; Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 510626006

The identification, institutionalization and treatment of mentally ill offenders and dangerous psychiatric or, in other words, the dangerousness complex relies today on a variety of approaches across Europe which reflect highly diverging historical development in the juridical, medical and institutional spheres. Whereas experts in the field call for a continent-wide harmonization, there is no consensus about, or even firm knowledge of, the causes of this heterogeneity, as well as of the forces driving national developments since World War II. General models of varying purchase (national juridical traditions, transinstitutionalisation; “risk culture”) have been put forward to account for these variations, but they all show serious flaws in terms of either explanatory power, or clarity of the analytical categories. The proposed project aims at contributing to this debate, through an empirically grounded historical analysis three national systems of forensic psychiatry in the post-world war II period: France, Germany and Italy. Our main hypothesis is that the transformations of the dangerousness complex were shaped by the changing relationships between psychiatry and law during the period, and, more specifically, that they reflected the (re)emergence of rights as both an objective and an instrument in the mental health field. In this process we hypothesize that a key role is played by a complex dynamics involving at once the globalization of human rights, transnational mobilizations for those rights and national reform processes affecting penal law and psychiatric institutions. The project is articulated along three lines of research. First, we will map the evolving assemblages (of knowledge, institutions, technologies, clinical and law practices) on which the contemporary conception and management of dangerousness relied in France, Germany and Italy, and their relationship with the reforms in the mental health field between the 1950s and the 2000s. Second, we will create and analyse a database of cases and affairs involving forensic psychiatry in that period. These affairs will be considered with regard to their exemplary character (as showcases of the evolving norms, ideals, expectations, and perceptions in a given society), as well as to their performative/transformative power (in tipping the balance of national systems in specific directions). Third, we will specifically investigate the role of national and transnational mobilizations for the human rights of psychiatric patients in the transformation of the management of dangerousness. We will provide an analysis of the creation and transformations of these mobilizations, of their evolving mobiles and agendas, and we will examine their enduring influence on debates on psychiatric and social dangerousness at the national and international level.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: France
• Cooperation Partner: Dr. Nicolas Henckes