Entre estórias e a história: contribuições de Lima Barreto para o debate de Políticas Públicas no Brasil em saúde mental

Abstract

This study seeks to analyze how the denunciations made by Afonso Henriques de Lima Barreto (1881-1922) can contribute to enhance the debate about the implementation of Public Policies in Brazil. Through the lens of the colonized, Lima Barreto sheds light on important issues for understanding the various forms of prejudice that support one another depriving a large part of the population on their fundamental rights. Barretian's narratives unveil the problems of a society guided by a Eurocentric culture, helping us to reflect on the paradigms of scientific thought of the period of transition from the Empire to the Republic and post-abolition. In this context, the work of this writer from Rio de Janeiro brings important contributions to the discussions around social, political, cultural and racial issues in Brazil, leading us to reflect on how topics such as race, class, and gender place people differently in the world. In addition to Lima Barreto's great importance to the country's cultural scene, his work is also of great importance in studies in the field of mental health and public policies, since, besides being a critical observer of the customs of his time, he was hospitalized twice in the hospital for the insane in Rio de Janeiro, leaving us a wealth of research material in the field of mental health in the books Diário do Hospício e Cemitério dos Vivos. Thus, it is intended to show a little of the historical context of the emergence of asylum medical policies at the beginning of the twentieth century and to analyze in Barretian's narratives the denunciations that already made explicit the demand to think about social policies that could guarantee dignified living conditions for people who were in situation of social vulnerability.