Abstract
This paper aimed to address the experience of the crisis in mental health from the cartoethnography of the existential territories and daily practices of care for candomblé followers in the process of deinstitutionalization in mental health in Salvador, Brazil, and adjacent areas. For these purposes, the cartoetnographic theoretical-methodological approach was used. The research involved unstructured interviews coupled with participant observation in the ethnographic molds in the participants' daily living spaces. Data analysis was based on ethical categories focused on the process of deinstitutionalization and on a second reading supported by what we proposed as the "cartoethnographic matrix of lines of thought". We find that the experience of crisis is very present in the trajectories of the interlocutors, which marks are the interruption of daily life, their moral value and the call (sometimes tacit) of the support network. From the narrative viewpoint, care in emergency rooms and / or psychiatric emergencies is symbolically emptied and even foracluted, while the care support in the terreiros is symbolically rich and offers an horizon for other interpretations and (re)creations of existence; this highlights their importance as institutions that can contribute to the deinstitutionalization in mental health of those who resort to them.
Keywords:
cartoethnography; crisis; mental health; care; deinstitutionalization
