Patienten uppträder helt som idiot : En diskursanalys av omsorgskter ifrån mitten av 1900-talet av bildbara och obildbara sinnesslöa

Sammanfattning: The aim of this study is to identify which different character features the feebleminded persons were ascribed in the journals of health. The journals of health are taken from the county council archive of Kronoberg, and consider people who are born 1930, 1940 and 1955. Furthermore, this study investigates which adjectives these feebleminded persons were associated with, as well as if there was a difference between them. In order to reach the aim of the study, this study uses two theories together with a discourse analysis. The first theory is Erving Goffman’s ideas of stigma, whereas we use Michel Foucault’s theory of power as our second theory. The theory is about the relationship between power and knowledge, and how it is used as a form of social control through community institutions. The motives of stigma were that the feebleminded were seen as threats to society and the rest of the population. Thanks to our discourse analysis, the result was that the doctors mostly used a negative vocabular when they described all the different feebleminded persons in their journals of health. Additionally, this study also presents that the discourse of today differ from the discourse of 1930, 1940 and 1955.