Abstract
The purpose is to discuss under some premises of Foucault's biopolitics, governmental practices in the field of the contemporary dominium of public mental health. Within this epistemology, I would like to revise the emergence of the device of the Public Policy on mental health attention for forced internal displacement victims at Colombia in the past decade. Under the Sentencia T 025 the Colombian constitutional court obliges the government to recognize the existence of forced internal displacement and states mandatory the provision of mental health attention to victims. I suggest that this dominium of the public policy in mental health for victims of sociopolitical violence is a biopolitic exercise, where the devices mainly used in public mental health such as population and individuals act upon certain groups focalizing interventions. This mediation acts under the naturalization of trauma, vulnerability and risk, and has the final effect of the medicalization of society.
Translated title of the contribution | Biopolitics: Elements for a critical analysis of public mental health in the contemporary Colombia |
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Original language | Spanish |
Pages (from-to) | 39-55 |
Number of pages | 17 |
Journal | Revista Gerencia y Politicas de Salud |
Volume | 11 |
Issue number | 23 |
State | Published - Jul 2012 |
Externally published | Yes |
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Health Policy