The discursive construction of mental illness : conversations with community clergy
Date
2003
Authors
Montgomery, Glenis Bernice
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Abstract
This study is about how language as a form of social practice discursively produces notions of mental illness and how these notions produce a differential respect for civil rights. The conceptual framework that supports the study is poststructural theory particularly Michel Foucault's critical analysis of the role of language in the production and reproduction of the categories of social and cultural differences. The study has two related parts. The first part is an investigation of the historical discursive construction of mental illness. The second part is an investigation of ways that community members represented by a single occupation talk about issues of mental illness and civil rights within the context of their jobs and particularly how their language both reproduces or challenges the dominant historical constructions of mental illness in their daily work with people they recognize as mentally ill. The thesis concludes with discussion on the implications of the study for further research into the language and social practices of other community relations, implications of the research for my own practice as an adult educator working in community mental. health care and possibilities for accommodating differences so as to transform repressive social practices.