Читать книгу Rainforest Asylum - Sara Ashencaen Crabtree - Страница 7

Probably when most people think of an ethnographic study of the people of East Malaysia, incorporating the two Malaysian states on the island of Borneo, they are more likely to think in terms of colourful cultural studies of indigenous folk struggling to maintain traditional lifestyles in the face of rampant industrialisation and consumerism. Or some equally emotive social issue such as this. Unsurprisingly, and fortunately, there are consequently many such noteworthy ethnographic accounts that chart change among rural communities in this region.

This study is somewhat different: in that although it focuses on the lives of certain Malaysian citizens of many ethnic backgrounds, pitted against what seems at times to be impersonal and oppressive forces, the context is far removed from the pastoral or the traditional. It is one, however, that has deep roots in Malaysian society and therefore forms the essential framework of this study.

These experiences have been gathered into a series of accounts from those individuals, who were then, and often still are, psychiatric patients living in long-term institutional care. The words of both sexes are encapsulated here; which is of particular importance as the narratives of psychiatric patients in Malaysia are rarely heard, and especially the voices of Malaysian women under this form of duress virtually unknown.

Significantly, it is argued that the context of Malaysian psychiatric institutional care is not inherently premised on indigenous needs and practices but is an uprooted, transplanted and anachronistic creation of another culture, from another time, for other purposes, based on assumptions and beliefs that have not survived intact from its own place of origin. Despite these anomalies however, the institution continues unscathed in Malaysia with no real sign of becoming obsolete or refashioned in this post-colonial nation despite the changes that are generally taking place in psychiatric services globally. Such paradoxes and the lived experiences of those patients accordingly form the theme of this book.