Think Positive, Save a Life”? Resilience and Mental Health Interventions as Political Abandonment in a Refugee Settlement in Northern Uganda
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12611172 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Costanza Torres (0000-0003-2283-5650, London School of Economics and Political Science, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 25 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 708-734 |
| Publication date | 2023-06-06 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Civil Wars (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1369-8249 • E-ISSN: 1743-968X |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/13698249.2023.2209485 |
| OpenAlex | W4379534262 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 74 |
This article investigates the entanglements of resilience-based refugee policies and mental health interventions in the refugee settlement of Palabek, northern Uganda. I argue that both resilience refugee policies and mental health humanitarian interventions stem from a neoliberal logic which shifts responsibility onto individuals for their psychological and economic wellbeing. I show that there are direct links between chronic food insecurity and rates of mental illness among South Sudanese refugees in Palabek settlement. By individualising social suffering, mental health discourses and interventions mask the failures of humanitarian assistance in Uganda. As such, they justify and enable the political abandonment of refugees
Abandonment (legal · Development economics · Economic growth · Economics · Humanitarian crisis · Mental health · Political science · Politics · Psychiatry · Psychological intervention · Psychological resilience · Refugee · Resilience (materials science · Settlement (finance · Sociology · Employment and Welfare Studies · Law · Medicine · Migration, Health and Trauma · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · Psychology · Social Psychology
Uganda
The Will to Improve
Humanitarian Reason
The Lord’s Resistance Army
Classical humanitarianism and resilience humanitarianism
New WHO prevalence estimates of mental disorders in conflict settings
How scientifically valid is the knowledge base of global mental health?
Mental health and psychosocial support in humanitarian settings
The Psychiatrization of Poverty
Food Insecurity and Mental Health Status
Resilience as embedded neoliberalism
In and beyond the camp
The socio-economic and psychosocial impact of Covid-19 pandemic on urban refugees in Uganda
Cash, Covid-19 and aid cuts
Madness in International Relations
The Empire of Trauma
Disorders Without Borders? The Expanding Scope of Psychiatric Practice
Exploring the mental health and psychosocial problems of Congolese refugees living in refugee settings in Rwanda and Uganda
Mental health and psychosocial support for South Sudanese refugees in northern Uganda
Food insecurity and mental health
The impact of food insecurity on mental health in Africa
Introduction – Mental and Emotional Distress as a Social Justice Issue
The Biopoliticization of Humanitarianism
Resistant Resilience
Refugees as Actors? Critical Reflections on Global Refugee Policies on Self-reliance and Resilience
Pragmatic Mobilities and Uncertain Lives
The Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework
Climate change vulnerability, adaptation measures, and risk perceptions at households level in Acholi sub-region, Northern Uganda
Psy-expertise, therapeutic culture and the politics of the personal in development
Who depends on whom? Uganda’s refugee ‘success story’, corruption and the international community
The Psychology of Rebellion
Resilience as Enhancement
The Birth of Biopolitics
Challenging environments
Resilience for Whom? Emerging Critical Geographies of Socio-ecological Resilience
Resilience and responsibility
From 'Invisible Problem' to Global Priority
The 'good life', personal appearance, and mental health of Congolese refugees in Rwanda and Uganda
Alcohol use during pregnancy in rural Lesotho
A critique of seven assumptions behind psychological trauma programmes in war-affected areas
Debating war-trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in an interdisciplinary arena
Therapeutic Governance
In praise of dependencies
Decolonizing Methodologies
Critical Events
Strategic universality in the making of global guidelines for mental health
Mental health for refugees, asylum seekers and displaced persons
Afterword
Resiliency Humanitarianism
These Things Continue
Is promoting war trauma such a good idea
Struggling to Be a "Happy Self"? Psychotherapy and the Medicalization of Unhappiness in Uganda
Disease as Dwelling
| Citations per year | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2024 - 2025 (2) |
| Highly cited | No |