Krzysztof Bierski

Supervisors: Sophie Day, David Graeber

Mental Health: Something We All Have (ESRC Funded)

Abstract:

In the contemporary United Kingdom, activists who challenge stigma and prejudice associated with mental illness have developed a number of pioneering strategies for campaigning. In addressing what they declared to be the ‘last great form of social exclusion’, activists have proved to be effective at employing a wide range of broadcast and social media. Among the multitude of media productions, individual narratives, social actions and discussion there has emerged a concept of universal mental health. Promotion of mental health as something that ‘everybody has’ aims to make the issues of suffering and discrimination relevant to the whole of society. Contemporary mental health activists, instead of demanding acceptance and tolerance for difference, as social movements in the past involved in struggles against exclusion have done, are instead encouraging inclusion, which is to come as a result of social recognition of sameness embedded in their idea of mental health. Therefore, their practices should be understood as a groundbreaking form of social action.

However, as it is the lived experience of mental illness which serves as the foundation for narratives and media representations and, subsequently, as the basis for arguments against social exclusion, the concept of mental health requires ethnographic scrutiny. This is particularly significant given that the discourse of universal mental health is capable of obscuring vast differences between the experiences of various mental illnesses and, by overlooking illness-specificity, might lead to inaccurate or misleading representations and, effectively, become counter-productive.

The concept of universal mental health materialised as fundamental to the activist struggle during the research conducted between January 2009 and March 2011 across a number of different locations in the United Kingdom and on the Internet. Data collected during fieldwork, which included participant observation during events, meetings and conferences, and on Facebook, interviews with activists and individuals affected by mental health problems, as well as participation in making of experience-based media representations, provides evidence for the hypothesis that mental health is not only a discourse, but also a form of individual and social practice and a basis for emergent identities.

Adding to the complexity of these practices are political discourses and governmental projects which encourage new forms of social responsibility. The activist emphasis on responsibility for one’s own mental health seems to converge with New Labour policies of involvement and Conservative ideas of the Big Society. In this context, activists have identified the general public as their prime audience and focused on giving visibility in public spaces to the issues surrounding mental illness. In my discussion I show that spaces and places are pivotal in activist practices and discourses. Social media, in particular, have provided new spaces for negotiating meanings of health and illness. A necessity for campaigning at a local level has also been emphasised. Furthermore, case studies from Richmond, one of the key fieldsites, bring evidence of the crucial importance of place in processes of individual recovery and narrative-making, and of collective effort to (re)build ‘community spirit’. In the light of the issues outlined above, this thesis presents an ethnographic exploration of the practices and discourses of mental health in particular locations, which I argue can be conceived of as ‘landscapes of mental health’.

My media work can be found here: http://vimeo.com/krzys

Inspired by my informants’ practices and uses of social media I became interested in how the proliferation of technologies and ubiquitous access to the Internet opens new possibilities for research. Arguably, social networks on the Internet demanded a sea change in the ways anthropologists focus on dynamics of human interactions and mobility, and, from a methodological point of view, in how we conduct ethnography. In order to fully understand particular social networks such as, for example, Couchsurfing I proposed that we should consider Global Ethnography as a methodological tool for the future. In my work I also suggested that terms such as digital, virtual, cyber, wired and, in particular, online should be altogether abandoned as they fail to reflect the experiential and affective aspects of people’s relationships in the context of Internet. As my research has shown, users of the mental-health focused groups and social networks on the Internet tend not to differentiate between online and offline interactions. In this context, I also considered the inevitability of being concurrently online and offline. Consequentially, I proposed that Internet should gain similar status in anthropology to that held by gender, kinship or ritual.

In my research I investigated engaged participation in communities’ practices of self-representation through the medium of film. The documentaries, which I made as a volunteer during my fieldwork, question the historically established positionality of ethnographic filmmakers as neutral or impartial observers. During my research I also became interested in how portraits can be representative of a particular community. Throughout my career as an animator and filmmaker I was commissioned by Saatchi & Saatchi and worked on film projects with the Royal Anthropological Institute, Mayor of London, Media Box and Polish National Film School in Łódź. In 2007 I received the D&AD Pencil Award for my animation Danse Macabre.

I am currently a Visiting Tutor on the Introduction to Social Anthropology course for 1st year Undergraduate students, here at Goldsmiths. As part of my degree in in the Management of Learning & Teaching in Higher Education, also at Goldsmiths, I research the use of social media and Internet-based technologies in the teaching process.

Conferences

‘Making Change Online: Mental Health Activism in the UK and Social Networking Sites’

Pluralism, Inclusion, Citizenship, 6th Global Conference, Prague, Czech Republic, March 2011

Abstract Available at http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/krzysztofppaper.pdf

‘Landscapes of Mental Health: Favourite Places and Recovery’

Goldsmiths Postgraduate Symposium, London, UK, May 2011

‘Sharing Experiences Online? Social Media and Mental Health Activism’

FILM AND MEDIA 2011: The First Annual London Film and Media Conference, London, UK, July, 2011

'Sharing Experiences of Mental Illness with Gatekeepers and Empathetic Research'

Gatekeepers and Social Research: Hindrance or Facilitation Conference, London, UK, June

‘Peer‐led Society: New Dimensions to Mental Health Services and to Ethnographic Work’

Goldsmiths Anthropology Research Workshop: New Approaches to Work and Labour, London, UK, September, 2011

“’Us’, ‘we’ and Experience of Mental Illness on Facebook’

MediAsia: The 2nd Asian Conference on Media & Mass Communication, Osaka, Japan. 2011

Podcast

Discussion with experts in the field about uses of social networks on the Internet by activists and people affected by mental health problems organised by UK's leading mental health charity - Rethink. I participated in February 2011

Selected publications

Bierski, K. 2011 (forthcoming), Sharing Experiences Online? Social Media and Mental Health Activism in FILM AND MEDIA 2011: The First Annual London Film and Media Conference e-book and Conference Proceedings