2024/07/18 by Peng, Yuxin
paper · doi:10.5287/ora-avrwynnmd
This article examines spatial changes at Littlemore hospital in Oxford between 1846 and 1956, the period since its foundation as a Victorian public asylum to the very last years before a radical psychiatric reform was implemented. I propose to see the asylum and later hospital spaces of Littlemore as being bodily sensed and co-productive with social processes. Specifically, I discuss the entanglement of these spaces with three factors: (panoptical) control, considerations of cost, and residents' comfort. With emphases on residents' bodily well-being and experiences, I aim to present a dynamic account of this part of the history of institutionalized mental health.