While the links between colonial psychiatry and racism figure prominently in histories of the diagnosis, treatment and institutionalisation of the mentally ill in Africa, there is an absence of patient-centred accounts, in the analysis of the efforts of the colonial-era subjects themselves to be pro-active not merely as the mentally ill, by clinical or court definition, but as persons embedded in social relationships with their kin and significant others. Moreover, despite an emerging scholarship, little is known of the experience of European settlers. In this respect there is a need for a more balanced representation, one that shows the ambivalence of colonial psychiatry and its reach into the lives of colonial subjects, Africans and Europeans alike. In this paper I focus on the narratives of a settler in German South West Africa and her efforts to escape diagnosis and institutionalisation. In building on a feminist approach to illness narratives, in particular on the idea of bearing empathic witness, I will explore the ways in which illness narratives can reveal the complex moral and political economies of the colonial world.

中文翻译：

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“德国妓女，当时没有钱”：精神错乱和德国西南非洲的道德和政治经济。

尽管殖民精神病学与种族主义之间的联系在非洲精神病患者的诊断，治疗和机构化历史中占有重要地位，但在分析殖民时代主体自身所做的努力时，却缺乏以患者为中心的说法。积极主动，不仅要根据临床或法院的定义，将其视为精神病患者，而且要积极参与与亲戚和重要他人的社会关系中。此外，尽管奖学金不断涌现，但对欧洲定居者的经验知之甚少。在这方面，需要一种更加平衡的代表制，以显示殖民精神病学的矛盾性及其对非洲人和欧洲人等殖民者生活的影响。在本文中，我重点介绍了一个德国西南非洲定居者的故事以及她为逃避诊断和制度化所做的努力。在建立女权主义的疾病叙事方法，特别是在建立善解人意的证人的观念的基础上，我将探索疾病叙事可以揭示殖民地世界复杂的道德和政治经济的方式。