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 power. Aotearoa 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

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

• Alcoff, Linda Martín (1998). ‘What Should White People Do?’ in: Hypatia. Volume 13, Issue 3, pages 6–26, August 1998
• Broeke, Asha ten (2015). ‘Nu pas zie ik mijn privileges als wit mens.’ In: Volkskrant.
• McIntosh, Peggy (). White Privilege. Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack (.pdf)
• Mens – Verhulst, Janneke (2007). Intersectionaliteit in vijf veronderstellingen.
• Greenberg, Jon (2015). Curriculum for White Americans to educate themselves on race and racism. From Fergusan to Charleston.

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Hieronder nog meer literatuur rond racisme en Mad Studies:

“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.”