Desviando a Rota: A Luta Antimanicolonial e a Descolonização da Psiquiatria no Brasil

Abstract

This article aims to briefly examine the trajectory of the anti-asylum struggle in Brazil, understood as part of the broader movement to decolonize Brazilian psychiatric knowledge. It draws on the notion of coloniality of power formulated by Aníbal Quijano and further developed by Walter Mignolo. The paper approaches psychiatry as a technology of exclusion, engaging in dialogue with Michel Foucault, Franco Basaglia, and Frantz Fanon. Within the Brazilian context, it draws on authors such as Jurandir Freire Costa and Lilia Schwarcz to highlight the articulation between psychiatry, hygienism, and eugenics, particularly through the actions of the Brazilian League of Mental Hygiene. This structure sought to correct the excesses left by the end of slavery and, through the whitening of the population, promoted the exclusion of minorities from the national project which, according to elite perspectives, hindered the country’s progress, leaving major urban centers populated by those deemed degenerate. The study concludes that the Brazilian Psychiatric Reform and social movements have constituted a form of resistance to coloniality in the field of mental health. The anti-asylum struggle thus remains a site of defense and resistance against a project historically orchestrated by European epistemologies—one that continues to shape, organize, and even dictate the ways in which we perceive the world.