Ithaca College

Dr. Ablard presented via Skype "The Hidden History of the Participation of Mental Health Professionals in the Argentine Process of National Reorganization (1976-1983)" at the Journée d'Etudes Internationale: : La santé dans les Amériques au prisme des sciences sociales hosted by the Université de Rouen (France). 

Dr. Ablard's paper exams the hidden history of the participation of psychiatrists and hospital administrators in state-sponsored repression in Argentina. While scholars have carefully examined the history of Argentine mental health professionals who were targeted by the military regime, the story of their colleagues who collaborated has not been studied. Dr. Ablard's work, which is an extension of his 2008 monograph Madness in Buenos Aires, relies on a wide range of sources, including memoirs, comparable studies from elsewhere in Latin America and Europe, and scholarship on the role of the Central Intelligence Agency in weaponizing psychiatry against political opponents at home and abroad.