RESUMO
The rise of psychiatric deinstitutionalization policies in the formerly colonized world is commonly narrated as a novel and decolonial intervention imparted by Euro-American NGOs of the global mental health era of the past two decades. By contrast, this article uncovers the history of a British imperial push for deinstitutionalization that originated in West Africa in the 1930s-decades prior to the rise of global mental health policies. Colonial austerity measures, combined with British officials' observations of West African ethno-psychiatric healing practices, motivated an empire-wide policy favoring family and community care over institutional treatment for most mentally distressed colonial subjects. Global mental health policies that ideologically sanction state austerity measures for the mentally ill through community care are neither new nor decolonial. They remake colonial-era mandates for public services to operate on shoestring budgets.