“…they automatically put me into categories”: Stories of racialized immigrant women’s use of mental health services

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The Department of Sociology 
presents:

“…they automatically put me into categories”: Stories of racialized immigrant women’s use of mental health services
by Shahina Parvin

In this presentation, I read the stories of some racialized immigrant women's use of mental health services in Lethbridge, Canada. I argue that such women's use of the services is generally associated with their disjuncture in the Western space and with their internalization of the bio-medical notion of mental health. In so doing, I unsettle the bio-psychiatric conception of a mental challenge as an ontological thing that needs a medical cure, and I suggest examining the structural and institutional discriminations that often contribute to such women's suffering, leading them to use mental health services. Further, I argue that mental health services in Lethbridge perpetuate the neo-liberal governmentality by propelling patients to take individual responsibility for their cure; consequently, contributing to such women’s cultural colonization.

Date: Monday, January 20, 2020
Time: 1 p.m.
Room: PE275


Contact:

Jenny Oseen | oseejs@uleth.ca | (403) 329-2551