From inclusion to justice
Rethinking inclusion as a practice of power in global mental health
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 24217832 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Chiara Fiscone (0009-0004-0262-3145, University of Milano-Bicocca) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 13 |
| Publication date | 2026-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Cambridge Prisms Global Mental Health (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2054-4251 • E-ISSN: 2054-4251 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/gmh.2026.10314 |
| OpenAlex | W7214801565 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 17 |
The concept of inclusion has become a central and largely uncontested principle across global mental health, education, and social policy. Despite its widespread adoption, its underlying assumptions often remain insufficiently interrogated. This Perspective critically examines inclusion not as a neutral or inherently benevolent concept, but as a practice embedded within broader relations of power. Informed by sustained empirical and professional engagement across early childhood education and developmental neurorehabilitation contexts, alongside research on migration, inclusion, and inequality, the paper argues that inclusion, as commonly operationalized, may reproduce the very inequalities it seeks to address. By presupposing a normative center into which “others” must be incorporated, inclusion risks functioning less as a transformative process and more as a mechanism of adaptation, regulation, and normalization. The paper highlights how dominant approaches to inclusion tend to individualize responsibility, foregrounding competencies and access while obscuring structural and historical conditions of exclusion. It further explores how inclusion operates as a regulatory practice that defines the boundaries of belonging, often requiring partial conformity to dominant norms. Within global mental health, these dynamics are particularly salient, as efforts to expand access to care are frequently accompanied by the global circulation of standardized models that may not fully engage with local epistemologies and lived realities. In response, this Perspective proposes a shift from inclusion as incorporation toward inclusion as transformation, situating it within a broader commitment to justice understood as structural change. Rather than asking how individuals can be better included, it calls for questioning the systems, norms, and epistemologies that define belonging. Reframing inclusion in this way opens space for more relational, context-sensitive, and epistemically plural approaches to global mental health.
access to mental health care · Early childhood education · epistemological pluralism · Global mental health · inclusion · individualization of responsibility · Inequality · Migration · Normalization · power relations · sense of belonging · Structural change · structural justice · Disability Rights and Representation · Mental Health Treatment and Access · Psychology and Mental Health
The Irregular School
Decolonizing Global Mental Health
How scientifically valid is the knowledge base of global mental health?
The contemporary refugee crisis
The Lancet Commission on global mental health and sustainable development
Co-producing knowledge in health and social care research
Deliberation as a condition for meaningful participation in health and healthcare research
Is Refugee Health Equity Possible in the Context of Structural Oppression and Protracted Displacement
Inclusive assessment in health professions education
Enacting participatory research
Identification and Assessment of Intercultural Competence as a Student Outcome of Internationalization
Contingent universality
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |