Preservation of individual histories of activists with "mental diseases" who lived in the pioneer age

The purpose of this project is to describe and put on record the survival skills of the patients, the ill, and other people who have been targeted for support/aid or supervision by public policies in the broad sense of the term. Our endeavor differs from the conventional research in the sense that we focus on the point of view of the objects of public policies, striving to actually fulfill the task of Ars Vivendi by finding the knowledge inherent in their views. For that purpose, we have made it our task to investigate the movement of people with “mental diseases” to describe and put on record the historical facts that have been left behind by the conventional framework of historical research on public policies and welfare. Specifically, we will conduct a series of interviews of four activists with “mental diseases”, who were active in the pioneer age of the movement from the 1970s to the first half of the 1980s, preserve their life histories, thus shedding light on the survival skills of people with “mental diseases” from their own viewpoint. The significance of this project is first and foremost in the originality of the task itself, that is, of clarifying the history of social activist movement by people with “mental diseases” from their own point of view. We believe that at the same time the research will show the importance of finding the survival skills of the various people who have been depicted in research so far from their own narratives.

Name of Project Preservation of individual histories of activists with “mental diseases” who lived in the pioneer age
Research subject Preservation of individual histories of activists with “mental diseases” who lived in the pioneer age
Project representative HOTTA Yoshitaro
Term 2012