The spatial dimension and the social place of madness: for an open city

Abstract

The Brazilian Psychiatric Reform (BPR) process proposes a break with the asylum paradigm in several dimensions. Thinking about care spaces and the right to the city are important flags for this issue. Bearing that in mind, a theoretical-conceptual framework was constructed, aiming to discuss and systematize the relationship between the architecture of care spaces geared toward madness and the production of subjectivities and relationships. Thus, based on archeo-genealogy, a dialogue was organized between concepts and authors that approach space and architecture as devices for the production of subjectivities and relationships, such as total institutions and self-mortification (Erving Goff-man) and space-behavioral syndrome (Mirian de Carvalho), as well as experiences such as those by Maura Lopes Cançado and Lima Barreto. It is also the aim of this study to discuss and draw, through the lens of different fields of knowledge, an ideal city that will aid in facing the asylum paradigm and strengthening the BPR process: the open city, that which includes difference. Locating the importance of discussing the architectures, spaces, and the city built for the BPR process, this article proposes to build and add a new dimension of analysis of such a process to those that already exist: the spatial dimension.