In this public lecture, Gabrielle Carey and Julia Brown hope to achieve at least two things. First, to humanise and reduce fear around the condition of schizophrenia (a heavily neglected social issue in Australia). Second, to show how two disciplines (literature and anthropology) can complement each other in the name of better communicating lived experiences of difficult subject matter.
Mental Health
Ep. #37: Democracy sausage, fan identity, mental health policy & being anthro-diplomats: This month on TFS
This month, we’d like to welcome and thank special guests Dr Jill Sheppard and Martyn Pearce from Policy Forum Pod for joining our semi-themed panel discussion, inspired by the upcoming Australian Federal Election. Dr Jill Sheppard is a lecturer and political scientist at the School of Politics and International Relations at the Australian National University, … Continue reading Ep. #37: Democracy sausage, fan identity, mental health policy & being anthro-diplomats: This month on TFS
How I kicked chronic migraine (And what that has to do with anthropology)
This post is about the biopsychosocial medical model and how it relates to the treatment of chronic pain. As an anthropologist, I’m particularly interested in the social part of that model - what societal factors contribute to the causes of chronic pain? What societal and contextual factors could be used to help individuals recover from their conditions, and help society recover from the current chronic pain epidemic? To get to that though, I’m going to need to talk about the biological and psychological aspects too, because the three are inextricably connected, despite Descartes assertions about the distinction between the mind and the body. To illustrate this, I’m going to share with you my own experiences. They’re highly subjective of course, and my journey will not be identical to anyone else’s - what has worked for me may not work for you, and I’m certainly no medical professional. But I gift my experiences to you here for you to evaluate for yourself.
Post-Bureaucratic Stress: Reflections on getting a police check in Vietnam
Bureaucracy is so deadly dull because it’s so mundane. But, as Steve Woolgar points out in his book Mundane Governance, the Latin etymology of ‘mundane’ is ‘of the world’ - just the way things are. And that’s only true of your experience with bureaucracy if you belong in the world in which you are living. If, as a grown-up, you’ve had to do any adulting in a country where you’re unfamiliar with the rules, then you'll know that bureaucracy becomes anything but mundane because you are not ‘of the world’ in which you’re trying to operate. So in this post, I want to draw on an experience from my fieldwork to explore how mundane bureaucracy, when you’re away from home, can be a stark reminder that you are ‘matter out of place’.
Gender and Mental health: The need for a wider lens
As the Australian comedian Hannah Gadsby powerfully put it, it would help if we didn’t start by seeing females and males as being from different planets. Experiences of violence and the broader social receptiveness to vulnerability, along with the manifestation of mental disorders and treatment, are influenced - but not entirely determined by gender.
The neoliberal university is making us sick: Who’s to blame?
Outside the academy, I’m sure the perception remains that academics sit in leather armchairs, gazing out the gilded windows of our ivory towers, thinking all day. That has not been my experience, nor that of anyone I know. My colleagues and peers have, however, experienced levels of anxiety and depression that are six times higher than experienced in the general population. They report higher levels of workaholism, the kind that has a negative and unwanted effect on relationships with loved ones. The picture is often even bleaker for women, people of colour, and other non-White, non-middle-class, non-males. So whether you think academics are ‘delicate woeful souls’ or not, it’s difficult to deny that there is a real problem to be tackled here.
Ep. #10 Smoking v. vaping, anthrosmelling, de/colonization, & America’s gun “tribes:” this month on TFS
This month, Julia (1:12) prompts us to think about 'vaping' e-cigarettes as a clinical compromise for smokers with schizophrenia. Having observed this strategy to be effective in the UK, she questions Australia's black-and-white moral approach against vaping. She says to take such an uncompromising stance here borders on “the definition of psychotic thinking, where you … Continue reading Ep. #10 Smoking v. vaping, anthrosmelling, de/colonization, & America’s gun “tribes:” this month on TFS
Ep. #6 Golden Globes allyship, thinking sick, health gaps, and working slow: this month on TFS
This month, Jodie (00:53) points to what the men didn’t say at the Golden Globes, and the problems of performing allyship. “So if we’re looking at the men at the Golden Globes who appeared to not behave like allies… are you saying we can’t rely on appearances because we can’t see inside to really understand … Continue reading Ep. #6 Golden Globes allyship, thinking sick, health gaps, and working slow: this month on TFS
A Christmas Anth(rop)ology
For this week’s blog, we decided to each write some thoughts on Christmas, from varied anthropological perspectives. We come at this from the position of people who were born and raised in societies that celebrated Christmas in both secular and religious incarnations. In our desire to write to a more ‘public’ anthropology, we present our … Continue reading A Christmas Anth(rop)ology
Ep. #4 Killer Docs, Imaginary Landscapes, Political Lies, and Emotional Risk: this month on TFS
In this month’s panel discussion, Jodie (1:14) tells us about documents with agency: “Ideas just get up and grow legs, and they run away with themselves.” (Trigger warning: this segment mentions the recent Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. If you want to avoid that part, skip to 3:45.) Next, Ian (6:00) … Continue reading Ep. #4 Killer Docs, Imaginary Landscapes, Political Lies, and Emotional Risk: this month on TFS
The Familiar Strange 