Juntos na luta: a trajetória de uma associação de usuários e familiares dos serviços de saúde mental na cidade de Salvador, Bahia.

Abstract

This dissertation results from a qualitative study that aims to conceptualize the configuration of identity, specifically of an association of individuals in a state of mental distress in the context of the Brazilian Psychiatric Reform and the Anti-Asylum Fight. Fieldwork was conducted between August 2010 and May 2011 and was anchored in daily monitoring of this association. Beyond the use of ethnographic techniques for data collection, semi-structured interviews were collected with both individuals and a focus group. We reconstructed and interpreted the itinerary of the association from three interrelated analytical dimensions: the experience of one member (a process that leads to the construction of the "mental patient career" and moments of "situations of breach" leading individuals to organize themselves in groups; group-to-self (the place where biographies are metabolized in the everyday experience of the group, a space of intersubjectivity, learning, and mobilization, at the same time updating the ethics, epistemologies, and politics of the Reform and Fight; and the group- with-others (the experience of constructing the objective gaze of other actors present in the field.) This term we perceive as more than a formal association; the collective of individuals is constituted as a group that has an identity based in action attempting to overcome anti- asylum institutions, practices, and attitudes. Through the realization of this action, identities and roles are redefined, alerting us to the perplexities of the new (old) subject identity