ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the relationship between madness and political conflict through the lens of mad studies. The author uses autoethnography and border thinking to shape an analysis of their experiences of madness and political conflict, primarily in Bosnia and Herzegovina – a site relevant for such an exploration due to a unique commitment to community-based mental health services in this post-war country. The analysis highlights two related findings. First points to the enduring dominance of the medical model of distress in contexts affected by political conflicts. However, the author argues that development studies and practice have proven to be equally colonizing in relation to such experiences. Knowledge at the intersection of mad studies and political conflict, the author concludes, is yet to be developed.
