RESUMO
This paper explores the spatial properties of several notions of citizenship used in long-term mental healthcare. We claim that speaking of citizenship is a way of drawing borders: some people fall inside and some fall outside the civic domain. Informed by Science and Technology Studies, we use topological methods to see where borders are drawn by different notions of citizenship and analyse the notions of space that are co-produced with them. With this study we develop a new way of thinking about citizenship: citizenship as 'being-in-place'. Being in-place can emancipate clients and help them expand their social networks.
Assuntos
Política de Saúde , Transtornos Mentais , Marginalização Social , Antropologia Cultural , Serviços Comunitários de Saúde Mental , Humanos , Países Baixos , Pesquisa QualitativaRESUMO
Deinstitutionalisation has not only made the social inclusion of clients a key objective in long-term mental healthcare, it may also affect the role of the care professional. This article investigates whether the social inclusion objective clashes with other long-standing professional values, specifically when clients give gifts to care professionals. In making a typology of gifts, we compare the literature on gift-giving with professional codes for gifts and relate both to the objective of social inclusion of clients. Our typology draws on an analysis of ethnographic fieldwork carried out in 2007/2008 at a Dutch mental healthcare centre. We identify four types of gifts for professionals in long-term mental healthcare, each relating individually to professional codes and the objective of social inclusion of clients. Only the 'personal gift' directly supports social inclusion, by fostering personal relationships between professionals and clients. Acceptance of this type of gift is advocated only for long-term care professionals. We suggest that professional codes need to consider this typology of gifts, and we advocate promoting reflexivity as a means of accounting for professional behaviour in deinstitutionalised care settings.