(What Geographers Should Know About) The State of U.S. and Canadian Academic Professional Associations’ Engagement with Mental Health Practices and Policies

Abstract

The professional organizations to which geographers belong and by which they are represented have a civic duty and ethical responsibility to educate their members about mental health issues in their professions and, by default, their work environments. And yet national-level professional associations in North America are lagging behind universities in adopting initiatives, commissioning reports, and looking into best practices around the mental health of their members. A survey of the Web sites of sixty-six professional associations in the social sciences, geographical sciences, and humanities in the United States and Canada reveals an uneven presence of attention to mental health issues in terms of their members’ research on mental health issues, awareness of mental health as a professional development issue, and engagement in mental health advocacy and public outreach. In this article, we explore how geography’s professional organizations compare to others with respect to these issues and suggest ways in which they can develop their own mental health protocols to address the crisis of mental health in the academy. Key Words: Academic professional associations, American Association of Geographers, Canadian Association of Geographers, mental health, mental health practices and policies.

地理学家所属且为其代表的专业组织，具有教育成员有关其职业的心理健康问题与预设的工作环境之公民义务和道德责任。但北美全国层级的专业组织，却在有关其成员的心理健康方面採取倡议、委任报告并寻求最佳实践上落后于大学。我们对美国与加拿大六十六个社会科学、地理科学和人文学科的协会网站进行调查，发现在关注其成员研究心理健康议题、意识到心理健康作为专业发展问题，以及参与心理健康倡议和公共推广方面等心理健康议题，存在着不均的关照。我们于本文中，探讨地理专业组织如何在这些议题上与其他组织相互比较，并建议其能发展自身心理健康协议以应对学术界的心理健康危机之方法。关键词：学术专业组织，美国地理学家协会，加拿大地理学家协会，心理健康，心理健康实践与政策。

Las organizaciones profesionales a las que pertenecen los geógrafos, y a quienes representan, tienen un deber cívico y una responsabilidad ética de educar a sus miembros en asuntos relacionados con salud mental en sus profesiones y, por defecto, en sus entornos de trabajo. Es lamentable que las asociaciones profesionales de nivel nacional en Norteamérica estén rezagadas, detrás de las universidades, en adoptar iniciativas, encargar informes y propender por mejores prácticas en la salud mental de sus afiliados. Una exploración de los sitios Web de sesenta y seis asociaciones profesionales de las ciencias sociales, las ciencias geográficas y las humanidades, en los Estados Unidos y Canadá, revela una presencia desigual de atención a problemas de salud mental en términos de investigación de sus miembros en temas de salud mental, conciencia de la salud mental como una cuestión de desarrollo profesional y compromiso y participación en defensa de la salud mental. En este artículo exploramos el modo como las organizaciones profesionales de la geografía se comparan con otras respecto de estos asuntos, y sugerimos las maneras como aquellas pueden desarrollar sus propios protocolos sobre salud mental para abocar las crisis que sobre este particular se presentan en la academia.

Palabras clave:

• Asociación Americana de Geógrafos
• Asociación Canadiense de Geógrafos
• asociaciones académicas profesionales
• prácticas y políticas sobre salud mental
• salud mental

Acknowledgments

We acknowledge the help of Bryan Mark (currently an MA student in the Graduate Program in Geography, York University) with the Web site data collection. We also acknowledge the invaluable work of the American Association of Geographers Task Force on Mental Health.

Notes

1 In the summer of 2014, three AAG members—Beverley Mullings, Kate Parizeau, and Linda Peake—approached the AAG Council about establishing a Task Force on Mental Health. The initiative was voted on by the Council in fall 2014. Then AAG President, Mona Domosh, moved to authorize its establishment; the motion passed unanimously (with one abstention).

2 Only national-level organizations were included from the Consortium of Social Science Associations and Global Affairs Canada lists; we omitted provincial associations in Canada and regional organizations in the United States, such as the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers. The professional associations of disciplines such as economics, history, psychology, and sociology are large enough to have smaller and more focused professional associations such as the Rural Sociological Association; in these instances only the national association was included. We also excluded organizations associated with university administration (e.g., the Council of Colleges of Arts and Sciences). We did not include organizations whose audiences are the general public as opposed to academics, such as the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, or organizations that represent universities, such as the Association of American Colleges & Universities. We also did not include labor unions that represent academics (e.g., Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents graduate students), given that labor unions are not present at all universities.

3 The members of the AAG Task Force on Mental Health include Beverley Mullings, Kate Parizeau, Linda Peake (Chair), Kim England, Gina Thornburg, Jon Magee, Vandana Wadhwa, Nancy Worth, Deborah Metzel, Alison Mountz, Jessica Finlay, Blake Hawkins, and Lydia Pulsipher. The gendered composition of the Task Force is worthy of notice, as is the fact that all work undertaken by its members has been conducted without any course release or funding or attention to audit processes. The Task Force report is available from Linda Peake ([email protected]) or Beverley Mullings ([email protected]).

4 Discussions with the Royal Geographical Society/Institute of British Geographers about establishing a Mental Health Task Force in the United Kingdom began in 2014, with informal meetings being held at the annual conferences in 2016 and 2017.

5 The Web sites were accessed at various times in 2017, 2018, and 2019.

6 Only a funded research project would provide both the financial and labor resources needed to conduct a more comprehensive survey.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Linda J. Peake

LINDA J. PEAKE is Director of the City Institute and Professor in the Urban Studies Program, Department of Social Science, Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies at York University, Toronto, ON M3J 1P3, Canada. E-mail: [email protected]. She is a feminist geographer with long-standing interests in urban-based research on women, particularly in the urban Global South and specifically Guyana; whiteness and antiracist practices; and feminist methodologies, especially in terms of the work that these do in transnational feminist praxis. Her interests in knowledge production also extend to issues of engaging with people in the academy experiencing mental and emotional distress and she is currently chair of the AAG Task Force on Mental Health.

Kim England

KIM ENGLAND is the Harry Bridges Endowed Chair of Labor Studies and Professor in the Department of Geography, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195. E-mail: [email protected]. She is an urban, social, and feminist geographer who focuses on care work, critical social policy analysis, economic restructuring, labor markets, and inequalities in North America. She is also interested in feminist theories of “the state” and comparative social policy formation as well as the gendering of urban space, planning practices and urban politics, and the politics and ethics of doing research. She is a member of the AAG Task Force on Mental Health.