Strangers on terra cognita: Authors of the other in a mental hospitala

Two important interrelated activities of medical anthropology at home are discussed: being at home in one's culture and the making of the Other. The author illustrates with ethnographic data from her fieldwork in a mental hospital how the anthropologist and the people in the hospital 'make' each other. Effects of this process are discussed. Making the other implies involvement in an arena in which morality and moral claims are contested and difference is constructed. This construction could serve uneven ends. Therefore, it is argued that making the other not only serves the construction of difference, but also sameness, understanding and bonding in human suffering. The process could serve as a bridge between psychiatric and anthropological practices if its written representations become part of the dialogue between the two disciplines and the informants. What are you writing? Are you writing down your findings? Fine! But do write about ME! (a woman from the hospital). Aber das Eigene soll ebenso gelernt werden wie das Fremde (Hölderlin).