Stories from a No Man’s Land: A City’s Experience with Madness

Abstract

The article presents urban experiences - from the city of Cariacica - that many people call city dwellers,"no man's land". For many years, it has housed the rejects of the cities that make up the metropolitan region of which it is a part, which has been moving in the direction of so-called "economic development". It is home to the first psychiatric hospital in the State of Espírito Santo, the former Adauto Botelho Hospital, which incarcerated the so-called insane and undesirable from the cities of Espírito Santo. As soon as the doors of the hospital were opened, madness began to populate the streets of Cariacica, which was also chosen as the location for the first therapeutic residences to house some of the hospital's former inmates who had lost their family ties. Full of stories that emerge from every crevice of the houses, the streets, the avenues, the signs, among many other spaces and in the memory of its inhabitants, showing that this city - "no man's land" - has been abandoned by the public authorities, left to its own devices, but stands out for the struggles and resistances that gain strength from the occupation of its spaces by madness.