US funds study on the state of Mental Health in the Global South (or how I read colonialism and epistemic justice)
The US National Institute for Mental Health is sponsoring a research initiative on the state of “Mental Health” patients in the Global South. As you probably suspected, I had a few (well, more than a few) words about it:
However, notably absent from both the article and the organization’s website, is the question of the legacy of colonialism (past and present) in the Global South. Because, in case it is not obvious, we have an ongoing problem with definitions of what constitutes mental health, community responses to mental health issues and whose healthcare (and pharmacological) models are used to draft these definitions imposed on the Global South.
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