The collective work, titled Norma y Locura. El Hospital Psiquiátrico Provincial de Córdoba (1885-1931), offers a transdisciplinary perspective on the legal, social, and clinical aspects surrounding involuntary asylum practices in the Andalusian city. The study is based on admission records and clinical histories of individuals confined to the institution.
From a legal standpoint, the book examines the interaction between the history of madness, its legal status, and its place in the constitutional project of the era, as well as the application of the judicial internment model in the hospital. In the field of psychology, diagnostic and therapeutic considerations of the vital experiences of the confined are discussed, analyzing how sexist views of those who held the power to codify norms and behaviors were applied differentially to men and women.
The project is carried out by the Leonor de Guzmán Chair of Women's Studies and is formulated from a gender perspective as a transversal category in scientific discourses, with the aim of highlighting the application of stereotypes and ideological criteria beyond the supposed objectivity of the psychiatrist.
The research was conducted by investigators Judit Bembibre Serrano, Alicia Cárdenas Cordón, Ana Contreras Merino, Naima Farhane Medina, Auxiliadora Guisado Domínguez, and Celia Prados García, who also coordinated the publication. The work, published by Colex, is available in Open Access. Its official presentation will take place on April 24 at 12:00 PM in the Library of the Faculty of Law and Business Sciences, as part of the “April in the Library” program at the University of Córdoba.
