Organizing Madness: Reflections on the Forms of the Form

Abstract

This paper investigates the form, as a modern and unprecedented textual device, which embodies a certain combination of writing and space, poses certain imperative questions, and generates `information' from the answers given. It offers a theoretical reflection on what kind of text the form is, and a possible history of how the form has been invented. It also offers an analysis of how one particular form, a Needs Assessment Schedule used in mental health care, embodies the complexities of this history, and poses ambiguities and opacities for professionals and clients using the form, or interacting with it. It also attempts an understanding at this micro-level of analysis of how larger entities, such as organizations, are constituted out of particular practices.

Translating and Transforming Care

“…Our findings support the established importance of avoiding questions that contain multiple elements ( Oppenheim, 2000 ), such as “fall” and “stumble,” and clarifying the frame of reference ( Mallinson, 2002 ; McLean & Hoskin, 1998 ). For example, questions should ask about what happens with current informal care provision and what would happen without any informal care provision.…”

“…The translation process is instigated and guided by the DLA claim form; yet, the form itself operates in the background, enlisting claimants to carry out the actual work of translation. The interaction is similar to an interrogation; the form asks the questions and answers must be on the terms provided by the form ( McLean & Hoskin, 1998 ). The claim form does not allow for the everyday conversational processes of calibration and repair ( Schegloff, 1992 ).…”

“…Accordingly, uncertainty about the meaning of questions ( van Oort et al, 2011 ), the frame of reference ( Wagoner & Valsiner, 2005 ) and the context referred to ( Mallinson, 2002 ) are widespread. Form-fillers often struggle to fit complex experiences and understandings into simple responses to ambiguous questions ( Mallinson, 2002 ; McLean & Hoskin, 1998 ; Shweder, 2008 ). We conceptualize all of these reported problems as translation effects because they pertain to problems of moving information from one social world into another via a form.…”

Halloween, Organization, and the Ethics of Uncanny Celebration

“…Importantly, (and in contrast to many of the photographs shared as part of the #mentalpatient social media campaign) they are also depictions of men and the masculine. Similarly, the choice of the names given to the costumes, the pseudo-medical clothing, syringes, and serial numbers all explicitly feed on a concern about the status, care, and security of those in society who live with mental health issues-a mysterious world which many have little direct knowledge of beyond the stories presented in news media, film, and television (McLean and Hoskin 1998;Seivers 1999). However, as a form of 'acting out' or ostensive action, the costumes also reference the far more insidious cultural and gendered representations of mental illness commonly found in popular horror movies that directly link mental ill-health with supernatural violence.…”

A study of the changing relationship between large corporates and the Inland Revenue

“…The movement to a written form of `inquisitio' is further enhanced in the development of forms and questionnaires which combine specific questions with a space for answers, thereby allowing "space" to become completed by the filling in of the form. Analysing the forms takes place through subsequent writing, examining and grading of the answers that fill the space, and of any non-answers (McLean and Hoskin, 1999). A whole new regime of truth develops which focuses on texts made up of written, and so apparently objective, facts and deploys forms of interrogation which include S' Thus it is an alternative to the correspondence theory of truth in which the focus is purely on the internal coherence of some statements with each other as for instance applied by Arthur.…”