ABSTRACT
In this chapter I revise Goffman’s concept of “moral career of a patient” to incorporate ethnic, class and gender dynamics taking place prior to and outside psychiatric hospitalization, and explain why they are an integral part of such career, although overseen by one of the founders of sociological studies of mental health institutions. Through ethnographic and archival data produced at the Female Chronic Unit of Bolivia’s National Psychiatric Hospital (INPGP), I examine hospitalization as an option (and a place for treatment) whose realization depends on power relations that exceed the hospital, which can be located within the communities of origin of female inmates, whom in general are of rural origin.
