The Mad Movement in Catalonia. Epistemic resistance and counter-hegemony in mental health

Abstract

This paper presents results of the project “Towards an archive of the historical memory of the struggles and social demands of the Mad Movement”. This movement brings together organisations, associations, groups and activists, platforms of psychiatrised people, who connect through diverse strategies to advance struggles for social justice and recognition in the field of mental health. We understand this movement as an epistemic fraternity promoting a critical conscience in relation to the oppressions experienced by psychiatrised people. The Archive project is a tool available for resistance against epistemic violence. It rescues the oral memory and recovers the intangible heritage related to the social struggles, the associative dynamics and the trajectories of the Mad Movement in Catalonia. Thus, the project is based on a participatory action research approach, framed in Mad Studies, seeking to generate spaces for recognition and visibility in this area, based on the participation and reflection of its protagonists. Based on conversations with activists of movements in first person, it aims to build and activate a narrative that articulates a collective biography linked to the struggles to transform the hegemonic approaches in the field of mental health and denounce its excesses. From the activist narratives collected, we can get to know and recognise the impact and transformative capacity of the movement and how it undoes epistemic injustice through collective action and mutual aid that generate counter-hegemonic agency and epistemic fraternity.