Focussing on the 'recycling' of both the idea of the psychiatric asylum and its sites, buildings and landscapes, this book makes theoretical connections to current trends in mental health care and to ideas in cultural/urban geography. The process of closing asylums and how asylums have survived in specific contexts and markets is assessed and consideration given to the enduring attraction of asylum and its repackaging as well as to retained mental health uses on former asylum sites, new uses on former sites, and interpretations of the derelict psychiatric asylum.

The Afterlives of the Psychiatric Asylum

Graham Moon is Professor of Spatial Analysis in Human Geography at the University of Southampton, UK. Robin Kearns is Professor of Geography in the School of Environment at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. Alun Joseph is University Professor Emeritus in the Department of Geography, University of Guelph, Canada.