Julio Villa-Palomino

I am a medical and sociocultural anthropologist. My research focuses broadly on questions about mental health, psychiatric expertise, the ethics and politics of care, and violence in Perú and Latin America.

My current book project, Discharged: Mental Health, Suspicion, and Care in a Peruvian Community, ethnographically examines Perú’s transition to a Community Mental Health model and the process of psychiatric deinstitutionalization and return to the community of clients formerly institutionalized in psychiatric hospitals. My book shows how the ethos of “community care” reshapes boundaries between care and coercion, the neighborhood and the clinic, truth and rumor, informing on and helping out. I show how community mental health is not simply a devolution of care from the state to community residents, but more importantly a series of interventions that weave together the state, health professionals, and neighbors who are now legally, socially, and ethically responsible and accountable for care.

My research agenda involves forthcoming projects on (1) the afterlives of “closed” psychiatric hospitals, (2) mental health and disability activism in Latin America, and (3) art therapy for people with severe mental illness.

Research Interest(s):

• Mental Health, Illness, and Well-Being
• Psychological Anthropology
• Care and Violence
• Suspicion and Surveillance
• Anthropology of Community
• Latin America and Perú

Selected Awards and Grants:

• National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Research Grant
• Wenner-Gren Foundation Dissertation Fieldwork Grant
• Society for Psychological Anthropology

Selected Publications:

Forth. | "The Psychological Anthropology of Mental Health and Psychiatric Treatment," in Cambridge Handbook of Psychological Anthropology. (with Jocelyn Lim Chua)

2024 | “Learning to Care: Men’s Parental Caregiving for Sons and Daughters in Peru.” Men and Masculinities, 27(1), 23–41.

2024 | “Después del Manicomio: La Transición hacia la Salud Mental Comunitaria en el Perú (1980-2022).” [After  the  Asylum:  Peru’s  Transition  Towards  Community  Mental  Health  (1980-2022)]. Anthropologica, 42(52), 114-142.