Lillhagens sjukhus som immateriellt kulturarv - bärare av före detta patienters minnen och berättelser

Abstract

The purpose of this essay is to broaden the understanding of Lillhagens sjukhus as intangible cultural heritage by examining the place outside the former patients who remained there. The investigation has focused on the rooms on Lillhagen who will be key, how they emerge in the descriptions of the physical, practical and emotional shape, and how the unifying picture emerges of Lillhagens sjukhus site. Key concepts in this study is space, place and memory. The study was conducted with a qualitative analysis location comprising five retrospective interviews with local maps used as a clarifying tool. The interviews were processed in memory narratives. ! The results shows Lillhagens sjukhus as a place on an abstract scale and holds the key-rooms Vårdbyggnaden, Avdelningen, Sovsalen, Naturrummet and Aktivitetsrummet. Lillhagen is loaded with a variety of emotions and reflections. The feelings that the former patients carried with them into staying at Lillhagen linked to their mental health, but also affected by perceptions and prejudices about the psychiatric institutionalization and mental illness. How the respondents experienced their stay at Lillhagen were affected by the physical environment and spatial practice. Negative aspects of Lillhagen is that it was perceived as an unattractive and sterile institutional environment by force, lock and abuse. The positive aspects dominated mainly because it was a place where the interviewees felt that they began to feel better. The experiences of Lillhagen represented by Tvångsrummet and Frihetsrummet. The hospital environment, consisting of Vårdbyggnaden, Avdelningen and Sovsalen, is the place that most clearly associated with coercion. Most clearly proves the constraint on the closed ward where patients' freedom was regulated carefully. In contrast to the tightly controlling the hospital environment was room such as Naturrummet and Aktivitetsrummet, which are associated with freedom. The preservation of the memories of Lillhagen are expected to have an opportunity to break the taboos and prejudices about mental illness, as well as highlighting the many stories that the site carries.