Live stream Conference: Mad Activism in Academia.

MAD ACTIVISM in ACADEMIA: Challenging Traditions – University College Cork- will be LIVE STREAMED ONLINE tomorrow (Monday April 18th 2016) – AND video recordings will be available after the day.

Awesome speakers are Jacqui Dillon, Helen Spandler, Dina Poursanidou and panellists Liz Brosnan, Rory Doody, Pat Bracken.

Link to programme 

Link to live stream 

 

 

Wat te doen aan de witheid van Mad Studies?

Geschreven door Grietje Keller.

Toen ik begin oktober bij de conferentie Making Sense of Mad Studies aanwezig was, maakte – onder andere – Jayasree Kalathil de aanwezigen erop attent dat deze conferentie een wit feestje is. Er waren geen zwarten, migranten of vluchtelingen (zmv) onder de sprekers en in het publiek waren de mensen met een zmv-achtergrond op één hand te tellen. Peter Beresford benoemde wel in zijn openingsrede dat het bij inclusie niet voldoet om af te wachten tot “the oppressed come to you”.

White privilege

In de afsluitende keynote gaf Brenda LeFrancois aan wat de potentiële ondergang van Mad Studies zou kunnen zijn: wit privilege, eurocentrisme, racisme. Haar lezing en het benoemen van wit privilege riep heftige emoties op. Het is voor sommigen confronterend om erop gewezen te worden dat je als psychiatric survivor privileges zou kunnen hebben. Voor een uitleg van wit privilege verwijs ik naar het artikel White Privilege. Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack (.pdf) van Peggy McIntosh en dit uitstekende artikel van Asha ten Broeke uit de Volkskrant. Het bewust of onbewust uitsluiten van een zmv-perspectief is niet alleen een probleem voor mensen met een zmv-achtergrond. Naast dat het leuker is om in een eerlijker wereld te leven, verrijkt, verdiept, informeert en compliceert het zmv-perspectief Mad Studies.

Zwarte Mad Studies literatuurlijst

In de Facebook groep Mad Studies stelde Jayasree Kalathil deze literatuurlijst ter beschikking met de opmerking dat het geen volledige lijst is, voornamelijk uit het Verenigd Koninkrijk en wellicht niet allemaal Mad Studies. Onder andere om mijzelf te blijven herinneren aan het decentreren van witheid, plaats ik deze lijst hieronder. Daaronder nog meer literatuur rond dit thema die ik later gevonden heb. Aanvullingen zijn welkom! Stuur mij een email (grietje.keller@madstudies.nl) of schrijf aanvullingen in de comments.

  • Begum, N (2006). ‘A Personal Account of Using Mental Health Services for 21 Years.’ Community Care. September
  • Begum, N (2006). Doing it for Themselves: Participation and Black and Minority Ethnic Service Users. London: SCIE/REU
  • hooks, b (2005). Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery. Cambridge: South End Press.
  • Bennet, J., Kalathil, J. and Keating, F. (2007) Race Equality Training in Mental Health Services in England: Does One Size Fit All? London: Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health.
  • Blakey, H. (2005) Participation – Why Bother? The Views of Black and Minority Ethnic Mental Health Service Users on Participation in the NHS in Bradford. Bradford: International Centre for Participation Studies.
  • de Freitas, C. (2011) Participation in Mental Health Care by Ethnic Minority Users: Case studies from Netherlands and Brazil. Self-published PhD Thesis
  • Dewan, V (2001). ‘Life Support.’ In Something Inside So Strong: Strategies for Surviving Mental Distress, edited by J. Read. London: Mental Health Foundation. p. 44-49.
  • Fanon, F. (2008) Black Skin, White Masks (with a foreword by Kwame Anthony Appiah). New York: Grove Press
  • Fanon, F. (2004) The Wretched of the Earth (with foreword by Homi Bhabha). New York: Grove Press
  • The Fanon Centre (2008). Report of the Community Led Research Project Focussing on Male African and African Caribbean Perspectives on Recovery. London: Southside Partnership.
  • Fernando, S. (2010b) Mental Health, Race and Culture. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan (Revised edition).
  • Fernando, S. (2006) Stigma, Racism and powerAotearoa Ethnic Network Journal 1 (1).
  • Fernando S & Keating F, eds. (2009) Mental Health in a Multi-Ethnic Society: A Multidisciplinary Handbook. Hove: Routledge.
  • Fernando, S (2003) Cultural Diversity, Mental Health and Psychiatry: The Struggle against Racism. Hove: Routledge
  • Greaves, H (2010). ‘Circle of One: Experiences and Observations of a BME Service User and Consultant.’ In Mental Health, Service User Involvement and Recovery, edited by Jenny Weinstein. London: Jessica Kingsley.
  • Hill Collins, P (2000) Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment. New York: Routledge.
  • Jackson, V (2001). In Our Own Voice: African-American Stories of Oppression, Survival and Recovery in Mental Health Systems. Massachusetts: National Empowerment Center.
  • Kalathil, J (2009) Towards a cohesive voice of black and minority ethnic mental health service users and carers: A position paper based on the work of the Catch-a-Fiya Network. London: The Afiya Trust
  • Kalathil J (2009) Dancing to our own Tunes: Reassessing Black and Minority Ethnic Mental Health Service User Involvement. London: NSUN. [Reviewed and reprinted in 2011, reprinted again in 2013]
  • Kalathil, J, Collier, B, Bhakta, R, Daniel, O, Joseph, D and Trivedi, P (2011) Recovery and Resilience: African, African Caribbean and South Asian Women’s Narratives of Recovering from Mental Distress. London: Mental Health Foundation and Survivor Research.
  • Kalathil, J (2013) ‘“Hard to Reach?” Racialised Groups and Mental Health Service User Involvement’, in P. Staddon, ed. Mental Health Service Users in Research: Critical Sociological Perspectives. Bristol: Policy Press.
  • Keating F, Robertson D, McCulloch A & Francis E (2002) Breaking the Circles of Fear: A Review of the Relationship between Mental Health Services and African and Caribbean Communities. London: The Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health.
  • Metzl J M (2009) The Protest Psychosis: How Schizophrenia became a Black Disease. Boston: Beacon Press. (radio-interview met Metzl over zijn boek hier.)
  • Nabbali, E.M. (2013) ‘“Mad” Activism and its (Ghanaian?) Future: A Prolegomena to Debate.’ Trans-Scripts 3.
  • Noorani, T (2013) Service user involvement, authority and the ‘expert-by-experience’ in mental health, Journal of Political Power, 6:1, 49-68
  • NSCSHA (2003) Independent Inquiry into the Death of David Bennett. Cambridge: Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire Strategic Health Authority.
  • Prins H, Backer-Holst T, Francis E, Keitch I (1993) Big, Black and Dangerous: Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Death in Broadmoor Hospital of Orville Blackwood and a Review of the Deaths of Two Other Afro-Caribbean Patients. London: Special Hospitals Service Authority.
  • Sashidharan, SP and Francis, E (1999) ‘Racism in psychiatry necessitates reappraisal of general procedures and Eurocentric theories’. BMJ, 319
  • Sashidharan SP (2001) Institutional racism in British psychiatry. Psychiatric Bulletin 31 321-325.
  • Trivedi, P (2010). ‘A Recovery Approach in Mental Health Services: Transformation, Tokenism or Tyranny?’ in Voices of Experience: Narratives of Mental Health Survivors, edited by T. Bassett and T. Stickley. John Wiley and Sons Ltd.
  • Trivedi, P (2008) ‘Black service user involvement: rhetoric or reality?’ in Fernando, S and Keating, F, eds, Mental Health in a Multi- Ethnic Society. London: Routledge
  • Trivedi, P, et. al. (2002) ‘Let the tiger roar.’ Mental Health Today, August, 30–33
  • Trivedi, P (2001) ‘Never again.’ Open Mind, July/Aug
  • Trivedi, P (2004). ‘Are We Who We Say We Are or Who You Think We Are?’ Asylum, 14.4: 4-5.
  • ‘Sisters of the Yam’ (2004). Special Edition of Asylum, 14.4

Voor zover de lijst van Jayasree Kalathil, hierbij nog een aantal artikelen over witheid, wit privilege en intersectionaliteit.


Hieronder nog meer literatuur rond racisme en Mad Studies:

  • Update 21 februari 2016: In de Facebookgroep Mad Studies was er een ‘draadje’ over dit onderwerp. Jennifer Poole schreef het volgende:

“I have looked to three people in particular here at Ryerson when thinking about efforts to decolonize the whiteness in many Mad spaces. 1. Cyndy Baskin who has written copiously and beautifully about how her own experiences of pain and hearing voices get taken up as an Indigenous woman and scholar. 2. Lynn Lavallee, a Metis scholar, who is co-editor of the book Journey to Healing: Aboriginal People dealing with Addictions and Mental Health issues. 3. Idil Abdillahi who is doing similar work when it comes to anti-Black racism and incarceration. None use the term Mad because, in Idil’s words, it is too dangerous on top of the racism/sexism/colonialism/islamophobia.”

Mad Studies leesgroepen beginnen in januari.

we are all mad here

Ben je geïnteresseerd in vragen als: ben ik gek of is de wereld gek? Wat is de relatie tussen seksisme, racisme en psychiatrie? Kunnen we stigma niet beter benoemen als discriminatie? In de Mad Studies-groep lezen en bediscussiëren we teksten over psychiatrie en gekte. Zo krijg je woorden en ideeën aangereikt om je eigen positie te bepalen over diagnoses, taalgebruik, stigma, medicijnen, hulpverlening, spiritualiteit, ziekteinzicht, Mad Pride en andere psy-thema’s.

Doe mee met de Mad Studies leesgroepen in januari 2016, meld je hier aan. Of stuur een email naar: grietje.keller@madstudies.nl Continue reading Mad Studies leesgroepen beginnen in januari.

Call for papers: Making Sense of Mad Studies

Wednesday, 30 September 2015 at 10:30 Thursday, 1 October 2015 at 17:30 (BST), Durham, United Kingdom

Sign up here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/making-sense-of-mad-studies-tickets-17586057371

‘Making Sense of Mad Studies’ is a two day conference to be held on 30 September and 1 October 2015-funded by the Welcome Trust and hosted by the Centre for Medical Humanities at Durham University in collaboration with the North East Mad Studies Forum.  The aim of the conference is to provide a platform for the development and critical exploration of the emerging discipline, Mad Studies, with specific emphasis on nurturing new researchers and collaborations in this area- both inside and outside of the University. There will be a particular critical focus on exploring the following themes:

  • What are the challenges Mad Studies face and what can we do about them?
  • What does ‘doing’ Mad Studies mean?
  • Connections between Mad Studies and disciplines such as sociology, disability studies, geography, psychiatry, social policy, healthcare and medicine;
  • Mad Studies, ‘recovery’, and the co-option of activist terms;
  • Narratives of madness and distress- drawing on literature and cultural representations as a source for understanding mental distress.

We are delighted to announce that we already have five keynote speakers confirmed: Prof. Peter Beresford, Representatives from ‘Recovery in the Bin’, Prof. Brenda LeFrancois, Dr Helen Spandler, Prof. Brendan Stone.

We hope this conference provides space to begin and continue conversations, and for delegates to think about how we make sense of Mad Studies, reflecting on what Mad Studies has done and can do. If you have any questions about the conference please do not hesitate to contact Victoria Armstrong, one of the conference organisers at v.e.potts@durham.ac.uk.  Also, if you have any particular access requirements please let Victoria know.  We expect demand for places at this conference will be high so please book early.  Booking for the event will close on 1 September 2015.

Do you have questions about Making Sense of Mad Studies? Contact Victoria Armstrong

“Saneism”: discriminatie van de “insane”

Morgen lezen we een artikel over “saneism” van PhebeAnn Wolframe

“I was aware of the discrimination I had faced as a “mentally ill” person, but I accepted that oppression. I believed, at the time, that I was sick, and I believed that this sickness caused me to hurt myself and others. Should I not then, I reasoned, be restrained by the straightjacket of unequal treatment?

It was only later when I came to reject the medical model of madness 6 that I questioned my own internalization of an oppression I came to know as saneism.”

Uit: “The Madwoman in the Academy, or, Revealing the Invisible Straightjacket: Theorizing and Teaching Saneism and Sane Privilege” gepubliceerd online in Disability Studies Quarterly.

Call for Papers: “Madness, violence, and power: A radical anthology”

 ~  Andrea Daley  (York  University,  Toronto,  ON,  Canada) 

~  Lucy  Costa (Systemic  Advocate, The  Empowerment  Council:  A  Voice for Clients  of CAMH,  Toronto, ON,  Canada) 

~ Peter Beresford (Brunel University, Uxbridge, England, UK) 

The  editors  are working  with  an  international  advisory  group  that  includes  service users/survivors  from  the  UK, Germany and Canada. 

Summary of Topic 

This  interdisciplinary  anthology  will discuss  violence  as  manifest  in  the  lives  of diversely-situated people  who identify  in  various  ways  including  but not limited  to mental  health services  users;  people  with  mental illness, psychiatric  disabilities  or    psychosocial disabilities;  psychiatric  survivors/consumers, and  neurodivergent  (herein referred  to as  ‘people who have had  contact  with psychiatry  and  the mental health  system’).  We  are  motivated by an  apparently  increased discussion  and  coverage of violence  in  relation  to ‘mental illness’  within  the  public  sphere including the media, governments, community agencies, and psychiatric and penal institutions. 

Our goal  is  to challenge  common  ways  of talking  about  violence  related to  people  who  have had  contact  with psychiatry  and  the mental  health  system.  These  common  ways  include biomedical  frameworks  and  statistical assertions that position  people with psychiatric  diagnosis  as  more likely  to  be victims  of violence and  enact violence compared  to people without  psychiatric  diagnosis.   This  narrow  binary  separates  violence from  its  social context, often reducing it to an individual issue. 

The  purpose of the  anthology  is  to broaden  understandings  of violence in  the lives  of  people  who have  had  contact with  psychiatry  and  the  mental health system  and  develop  current  debate  in  ways that explore the  impacts  of systems  and  institutions  that  manage ‘abnormality.’  Another  purpose  is  to examine the role of  service  users  in legal, social, policy and medical transformations in relation to such systems and institutions. 

This  interdisciplinary  anthology  will bring  together  people thinking, researching, writing  and  taking  action  about new  considerations  of power,  violence,  systems  and  institutions in  relation  to  people  who have  had  contact  with psychiatry  and  the mental  health  system. It will include academic  and  non-academic  community  members, activists and  allies  within  the consumer/survivor,  ex-patient  and  Mad movements. We are seeking  first  person  narratives, empirical research  studies  (quantitative and/or  qualitative), and  theoretical contributions  encompassing  a  range of critical theories  including  feminist, queer,  critical  race,  intersectional and  post-colonial as  informed by consumer/survivor, ex-patient, Mad  and  critical disability  movements.  We welcome a  broad  range of contribution styles/formats including artistic contributions including poetry, visual art and photography. 

We welcome papers  that  utilize critical  conceptual  frameworks  that  may include topics  related  to  the following themes: 
Neoliberal  discourses 

o  How do neoliberal discourses  on  ‘health’  and  ‘community  engagement’  depoliticize issues  of  social (in)justice, inequality  and  inequity? 

o  How does the neo-liberal  project  of  medicalizing  social justice  issues  impact  people  who have had contact  with psychiatry and the mental health system? 

Laws,  legislations&  policy frameworks 
o  How do laws, legislations  and  policy  frameworks  serve to  control and  govern  ‘people who  have had  contact with  psychiatry  and  the  mental health system?    Is  this  violence? 
o  How do questions of  power, autonomy  and  dependency  underlie:    hate  crime  legislation;  employment  and disability  insurance policy;  immigration  policy;  community  treatment  orders  (CTOs);  disability  and  mental health  acts;  national  security  policy  (e.g., border  crossing), implementation  of  recommendations  from  inquests into deaths  of persons  involved  in  the  psychiatric  systems,  state power (via laws) which exclude entire  groups of people  such as  First  Nations/Indigenous  from  self-governance and  resources? 

o  How can and how does the  law support and  improve the possibilities  for  citizen  participation? 

o  What considerations  should  be made  on  the application,  relevance  and  utility  of international law  to challenge violence? 

o  What are the barriers  to accessing  justice within  the lower  and  higher  courts  and/or mental health tribunals? Are these barriers  a  type  of violence? 

o  Do people experience  violence  in  legal proceedings  (mental health  courts  and/or tribunals)  as  a  result  of intersections between  Aboriginality, race, ethnicity/culture, sex/gender, class, and/or  living  with  other  evident disabilities  (e.g., physical  disability)?    

 o  How does law reproduce  and  draw  from  other knowledge(s)  or disciplines  in  order  to constitute itself  as  valid and meaningful? 

The practices  of institutions and  the institutionalization  of practices 

o  How the practices  of institutions  and  the  institutionalization  of practices  serve to  enact  violence upon  people who have  had  contact  with psychiatry  and  the  mental health system? Practices  may  include those within education, social services  and  mental health, criminal justice and  policing, and  employment  institutions such as institutional frameworks  associated  with  eligibility  and  documentation  and/or  record keeping;  academic program  requirements  and  research including  ethics  and  funding  criteria;  police training  for, and  responses  to, ‘emotionally  distressed people’;  patient  management  within  psychiatric  hospitals/institutions;  constructions  of mental disorders (DSM). 

Restorative justice  and  madness 

o  While people  who  have had contact  with  psychiatry  and  the mental  health system  are often  the  victims  of violence, and  the  risk  of offending  is  statistically  lower for  mental health  service users  than  the  general  public, this  section  will examine the  enactment  of violence  by  people who are  mental  health  service users. Authors  are asked  to engage with difficult  questions about ‘criminality’  within  Mad/consumer/survivor communities  while critically  exploring  issues  related to  the determination  of ‘perpetrators’  and  ‘victims’, the allocation  of community supports  and  community  responses  to violence such as  strategies  for  redress.  We  invite people who have  committed  violence  such as  assault to contribute.  While not necessarily  conceptualized as  ‘violence’, contributions  that  explore experiences  of self-harm  will also be  considered.  

Questions  for consideration: 

o  How do we analyse and  address  violence  when  enacted  by  individuals  with  mental health  issues/  madness without creating  a  culture  of silence, vilification,  and  apologies  or  excuses? 

o  What are the best  models/frameworks  to address  violence  that  move  us  from  the  biomedical discourse  of risk/safety  to shared  social  responsibility? 

o  What could  be the contribution  of people with experience of psychiatric  treatment  in  developing  an  alternative framework to understand and address violence? 
o  What do mental health service users  with a designation  of “Not  Criminally  Responsible”  or,  “Not Guilty  By Reason of Insanity” feel about their experiences in the forensic system? 

o  What are the implications  of  relying  on  oppressive  institutions/structures  to  address  violence in  the  mental health  service  user communities? 

o  What is the contribution  of  forced  psychiatry  (e.g.,  medication,  restraint, seclusion)  to  violence  committed  by (ex)  psychiatric  patients? 

Length:  Chapters  should  be approximately  5,000 words  in  length (including  references), but may  be  shorter depending  on  contribution  style  and  format (e.g., poem).  Authors  are invited to  submit  a  350-500  word abstract for  consideration  including author’s  affiliations,  contact  information,  and brief biography  by email to  the  editors  by  MAY  29,  2015: 

Andrea Daley, York  University,  Toronto,  ON  Canada,  adaley@yorku.ca    

Lucy  Costa,  The  Empowerment  Council,  Toronto, ON  Canada,  ms.lucycosta@gmail.com 

Peter  Beresford, Brunel University, Uxbridge, England,  UK,  peter.beresford@brunel.ac.uk