Contenu du sommaire : Médicalisation

The Forms and Stakes of Medieval Medicalisation : Reflection on Italian City-states (13th -14th centuries)«Medicalisation», a word bor-rowed from sociologists and philosophers, is especially relevant as an object of reflection when it is used to account for perceptible changes that took place at the end of the Middle Ages. This study focuses on the diversity of the health care market, of forms of medical expertise and of objects that became important stakes for knowledge and practitioners' interventions. It brings out the transformations that under-scored the extending scope of medical competence and the growing preference for recourse to university-trained physicians with a scientific background.

Care and/or Confinement ? Hospitals and Insanity under the Old Regime
We cannot really speak of the «medicalisation of insanity» prior to the birth of psychiatry and asylums, that is, before the turn of the 18th century. Yet recent research emphasises the pre-cocious nature of a discourse and medical practice, developed in institutions reserved for the insane, which arose in the 16th century. Thus, psychiatry and asylums did not appear out of the blue, but were instead the product of a long-term process in no way derived from «institutional confinement», but rather from the ambiguity of older experiences of internment and care of the insane.

Reality and Viewpoints on the Medicalisation of Insanity in France during the Interwar Period
Since the law of June 1938 organising assistance to the insane, the medicalisation of insanity has coincided with internment. During the interwar period, psychiatrists conceived of new systems for the care of the insane. They were intended to cope with the growing number of people confined to institutions, interpreted as a recrudescence of mental illness, but also to treat patients suffering from mild disorders. In other words, to shift the boundary lines of insanity. This medicalisation project, which was impeded in the provinces, did not come into being until after the Second World War.

Medical Knowledge and the Power of Physicians from the Industrial Revolution to the Post-industrial State: the Case of Manchester. This article retraces the transformations of the university medical elite in England, focusing on the case of Manchester and its faculty of medicine, from the industrial revolution to deindus-trialisation. It analyses the reasons behind the fact that the influence of medical schools reached its peak during the initial phase of the National Health Service and started to decline in the 1980s due to of the rise of «general management» and the «neoliberal» orientations of the central government, which proved to be far stronger than the prevailing approach during the previous so-called «statist» decades.

The Bathtub, the Bed and the Door. The Social Life of the Objects of Psychiatry.
This articles attempts to take a different look at 20th century psychiatry by focusing on the bathtub, an obvious object of treatment, an ordinary hospital bed and the door, an artefact that usually goes unnoticed. Taking into account the «biography» of the objects from their design to their use, the articles emphasises the interdependence between objects that determine every- day psychiatric practice and psychiatry, which transforms these same objects.

Exceptional Migrations? The «Journeys» of African Contemporary Dancers.
This article describes the ambivalence of the artistic mobility of African dancers today. Acclaimed by institutions in the field of choreography, yet subject to the constraints of European migration policies, these «exceptional migrations» place African performers in differentiated social spaces in which they occupy, in turn, dominant and dominated positions.

A Decomposition of Authority: the French Crisis of Obedience in the Spring of 1917How can one re-examine the French army mutinies in 1917 and at the same time put an end to the all-too-famous quarrel among historians over consent vs. constraint during World War One? André Loez has achieved this tour de force through a careful reconstruction of the springtime mutinies, reassessed as the visible face of a deeper, widespread crisis of obedience. In a demonstration strengthened by a pragmatic analysis of every bit of information in the archives, this work reveals the mechanisms of social conformism used to keep the combatants in line.

«If this Bloody War Could only End...» Men and Mutiny: a Theory of Protest Practices
Using a method exemplifying a unified social sciences approach, the value of André Loez' work goes beyond the field of First World War history to make a major contribution to the sociology of protest practices. These practices are not necessarily driven by ideology (pacifism in this case). Their meaning emerges in the course of action. The book examines a neglected aspect of theories of collective action: the work of mobilisation and repression undertaken by institutions (in this case, the army), showing that to grasp protest, it is necessary to understand social conformism and the institutional work of mobilisation.