Using Structural Competency to Augment Culturally Responsive Research on Mental Health in Neoliberal Context

Ethnographic Reflections

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4643608
AutoresNeha Jain (0000-0001-5478-4101, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur), Arpita Gupta (0000-0001-8862-3584, Jindal School of Psychology and Counselling, OP Jindal Global University, Sonipat, India, autor de correspondencia), Deepika Sharma (0000-0002-6641-173X, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Indian School of Mines Dhanbad, Dhanbad, India), Shilpi Kukreja (0000-0001-8591-3252, Department of Lifelong Learning and Extension, Chhatrapati Shahu Ji Maharaj University Kanpur, Kanpur, India), K R Priya (0000-0001-7893-2623, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur)
Año2025
Volumen35
Número4-5
Páginas433-447
Fecha de publicación2025-04-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaQualitative Health Research (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1049-7323 • E-ISSN: 1552-7557
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/10497323241311493
PMID40171591
OpenAlexW4409087317
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas3
Referencias citadas37

Culturally responsive methodologies (CRMs) foreground critical engagement, people's voices, and connection with cultural heritage. Similarly, structural competency (SC) advocates for structural humility and cultural safety to address the structural hierarchies and humanize interactions within health care and research settings. In the Global South countries like India, where persistent colonial legacy and neoliberal influences in the post-colonial era continue to dehumanize mental health care and disempower minoritized communities, CRMs are often overlooked. This paper argues that integrating SC could potentially augment the deconstructing and humanizing features of CRM for mental health research in developing countries. Three ethnographic reflections from research on mental health care in India are utilized to highlight (a) the influence of power discourses on the process of developing humanizing dialogic spaces, (b) the potential of research dialogue in building insights about human distress, possibilities, or paradoxes of recovery or healing, and (c) the possibility of creating a more holistic mental health care of the distressed in the neoliberal times. The paper discusses how mental health researchers' structural competencies contribute toward centering the voices (needs, aspirations, and priorities) and reaffirming the dignity of the minoritized communities by enabling documentation of (a) the challenges in developing humanizing research space amidst the dehumanizing and hierarchical care settings and (b) the narratives of distress and healing paradoxes among participants in care settings, influenced by social gender and class hierarchies, shared within these humanizing spaces

Dehumanization · Dignity · Health care · Mental distress · Mental health · Participatory action research · Political science · Psychotherapist · Public relations · Sociology · Anthropology · Community Health and Development · Cultural Competency in Health Care · Mental Health Treatment and Access · Psychology