Living with “the Mad”:|The politics of psychiatric caregiving in Turkey

Abstract

This thesis is an exploration of the affective labor of women caregivers who reside with their mentally afflicted relative in contemporary Turkey. It examines the distinctive characteristics of psychiatric caregiving which primarily stem from the unpredictability of the mental afflictions and the intense period of hardships, the fear of stigma as well as the suffering these bring to the lives of the afflicted people and their caregivers. Today, there are thousands of women who are engaged with this type of caring and their labor is by and large rendered invisible due to AKP regime’s sacred familialism which defines caring as women’s social responsibility. This thesis ascertains that women caregivers are abandoned by the state and this is made more possible by the psychiatric knowledge that promotes the idea of supportive family. It shows how this abandonment is further maintained by the other family members who refuse to engage in with the troubles of the mentally afflicted person. By tracing the stories of two women and situating them in the context of contemporary Turkey; it sheds light on the fact that psychiatric caregiving is a labor process as much as it is an inevitable human need and a universal human capacity.