An Ethnography at the Juvino Barreto Institute in Natal – RN

Some Socio-Anthropological Reflections

Abstract

This article originates from my master’s research conducted between 2016 and 2018, which aimed to understand how what I named a “language of suffering” is constituted at the Juvino Barreto Institute, a Long-Term Care Institution for the Elderly in the city of Natal, Brazil. In the study, I undertook a socio-anthropological approach, combining ethnographic experience with participant observation, informal conversations, narratives from the elderly “residents,” and social theories that contributed to understanding the institutional reality. Reflections on the experiences and research data enabled interpretations that point to the existence of a total institution, revealed in the elements of everyday life and in the physical structure of the Institute. It is inferred that the “language of suffering” manifested itself through the control of bodies, institutional discipline, medicalization, and mechanical restraint, which sought to alleviate the so-called “crises,” psychotic outbreaks, and escape attempts of the Institute’s “residents.”.