Unlearning through Mad Studies: Disruptive pedagogical praxis

Abstract

Medical discourse currently dominates as the defining framework for madness in educational praxis. Consequently, ideas rooted in a mental health/illness binary abound in higher learning, as both curriculum content and through institutional procedures that reinforce structures of normalcy. While madness, then, is included in university spaces, this inclusion proceeds in ways that continue to pathologize madness and disenfranchise mad people. This paper offers Mad Studies as an alternative entry point for engaging with madness in higher education, arguing that centring madness in pedagogical praxis has the potential to interrupt hegemonic ways of knowing, being, and learning. We illustrate how this disruption is facilitated by examining particular aspects of pedagogical praxis mobilized in Mad Studies, including building curriculum alongside mad community, centring madness in course design and student assessment, and the practice of mad positivity. Ultimately, this approach provides a metacurriculum of unlearning, challenging students to consider how their engagement with madness in the classroom, and beyond, has the potential to disrupt sanist systems of oppression and the normalcy they reconstitute.

Keywords:

• Mad Studies
• critical pedagogy
• mental health
• Disability Studies
• higher education
• metacurriculum

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Sanism “refers to the inequality, prejudice, and discrimination faced by people who are constructed as ‘crazy’ within dominant culture” (Diamond, 2013, p. 77). We conceptualize sanism as operating in concert with other forms of systemic discrimination including but not limited to racism, sexism, transphobia, and homophobia (see also Meerai, Abdillahi, & Poole, 2016).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sarah N. Snyder

Sarah Snyder is a PhD Candidate in Social Justice Education at the University of Toronto. She has taught at the School of Disability Studies at Ryerson University and the Women and Gender Studies Institute at the University of Toronto. Her research interests include the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Mad Studies and anti-racist/anti-sanist approaches to drug and substance use. She is currently conducting a genealogy of harm reduction examining how harm reduction operates as a form of racial management in settler colonial societies. She has published in The Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies.

Kendra-Ann Pitt

Kendra-Ann Pitt is an Assistant Professor in the School of Social Work at York University. Her research and teaching interests include critical social work, critical race, transnational feminist, and critical disability theories. She has previously taught Mad Studies in the School of Disability Studies at Ryerson University.

Fady Shanouda

Fady Shanouda received his doctorate from the University of Toronto in Public Health Sciences in 2019. His research draws connections between the eugenic history of higher education and the contemporary disclosure requirements for disabled and mad students. Fady is a course instructor in Mad Studies at New College at the University of Toronto as well as at the School of Disability Studies at Ryerson University. Currently, a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Health Sciences at City, University of London, Fady is researching the tech-based solutions that have emerged in response to international students’ mental health in the UK and globally.

Jijian Voronka

Jijian Voronka is an Assistant Professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Windsor, where she teaches primarily for their Disability Studies Program. Jijian’s current research explores the consequences of mental health service user inclusion strategies in research and service delivery systems. She is co-editor of the special issue “Disordering Social Inclusion” in the Journal of Ethics in Mental Health (2019) and has recent publications in Disability & Society; Canadian Journal of Disability Studies; and The Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies.

Jenna Reid

Jenna Reid received her PhD in Critical Disability Studies from York University. She is an Assistant Professor in Disability Studies at Ryerson University. Jenna’s academic research and studio art practice focus on artistic production as a site of critical inquiry, community organizing, and political activism. She has published in The Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies; Canadian Art; Intersectionalities: A Global Journal of Social Work Analysis, Research, Polity, and Practice; Journal of Progressive Human Services; and Studies in Social Justice. Jenna’s fibre art has been exhibited both locally and internationally.

Danielle Landry

Danielle Landry is a PhD Candidate in Sociology at York University. She is also a contract lecturer for the School of Disability Studies at Ryerson University and at Centennial College. Her SSHRC-funded doctoral research aims to re-theorize how we understand accessibility for people with psychiatric disabilities in the workplace. Danielle has published in The Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies; Disability & Society; Studies in the Education of Adults; and Studies in Social Justice. Her research and teaching interests include Mad Studies, Critical Disability Studies, and sociology of health and illness.