Well Enough to Work? Social Enterprise Employment and the Geographies of Mental Health Recovery

Abstract

This article examines the significance of paid work and workplaces for people living with mental ill health. Employment and workplaces have been largely absent in the mental health geography literature in part because of the persistent problems that people with mental ill health face in finding and retaining paid work; yet paid work and questions of productivity remain central to the very meaning of mental illness in capitalist society. To address this gap, we report on research involving social enterprises in Canada that reduce barriers to participation in paid work. Through the provision of accommodations and supports, these enterprise sites challenge the disabling division of labor characteristic of mainstream workplaces. In so doing, they provide a context in which people, understanding themselves as “well enough to work,” can enact new forms of economic subjectivity. The meaning of paid work in these alternative sites remains defined in relation to the norms of the capitalist economy, however. Thinking beyond these narrowly defined conceptions of wellness and productivity offers an important avenue for future mental health geographies.

本文检视给薪工作和工作场所之于患有心理疾病的人们的重要性。心理健康地理文献大幅忽略了就业和工作场所，部分是因为患有心理疾病者在求职并维持给薪工作上持续面临的困难；但给薪工作与生产力的问题，仍然是心理疾病在资本主义社会中的意义之核心。为了应对此一阙如，我们记述有关加拿大降低参与给薪工作的门槛之社会企业研究。这些企业场所，通过提供住宿与支持，挑战了主流工作场所去能力化的劳动分工特徵。他们藉由这麽做，提供人们认为自身“得以胜任工作”并能够扮演崭新的经济主体形式之背景。但给薪工作在这些另类场所中的意义，却持续与关乎资本主义经济的规范进行定义。超越这些狭义定义的健康和生产力概念进行思考，为未来的心理健康地理学提供了重要的路径。

Este artículo examina la importancia del trabajo remunerado y de los lugares de trabajo para la gente aquejada con problemas de salud mental. En gran medida, el empleo y los lugares de trabajo han estado ausentes en la literatura de la geografía de la salud mental, en parte debido a los problemas persistentes que enfrentan los enfermos mentales para conseguir y retener trabajo remunerado; sin embargo, el trabajo remunerado y los temas de productividad siguen siendo centrales para el propio significado de la enfermedad mental en la sociedad capitalista. Para abocar esta brecha, informamos de una investigación que involucra empresas sociales de Canadá que reducen las barreras de participación en trabajo remunerado. Por medio de la provisión de habitaciones y ayudas, estos sitios empresariales retan la división del trabajo por incapacidad característica de los lugares de trabajo de la generalidad. Al hacerlo, ellos proveen un contexto en el que la gente, entendiéndose a sí misma como “suficientemente bien para trabajar”, puede restablecer nuevas formas de subjetividad económica. No obstante, el significado del trabajo pago en estos sitios alternativos sigue definido en relación con las normas de la economía capitalista. Pensar con un alcance mayor al de estas concepciones de bienestar y productividad, definidas con estrechez, ofrece un camino importante para futuras geografías de la salud mental.

Key Words:

• employment
• mental health
• postasylum geographies
• recovery

关键词:

• 就业
• 心理健康
• 后难民地理
• 恢復。

Palabras clave:

• empleo
• geografías del postsiquiátrico
• recuperación
• salud mental

Acknowledgments

We extend our sincere thanks to the staff and workers of the social enterprises who agreed to participate in the interviews. We also thank the anonymous reviewers for constructive criticism on earlier drafts of the article.

Notes

Notes

1 The discursive framing of mental (ill) health is complex and contested (Pilgrim and Tomasini 2012). Some scholarship employs a language that corresponds to the diagnostic categories used in psychiatry. Others adopt an oppositional discourse that identifies people as “users” and “survivors” of an oppressive psychiatric system. Here we use the broad term mental ill health. This term acknowledges the significance of people’s lived experience of illness, emphasizing the collective experience of people in relation to paid work.

2 Kerlin (2006) noted significant definitional differences between Europe and North America, as well as differences between academic definitions and those employed by practitioners. Whereas U.S. definitions typically exclude any kind of profit distribution, European definitions allow for profit distribution among the members of cooperatives.

3 Discussing nonprofit enterprises specifically, Gibson-Graham (2006) noted that such organizations “barely make enough to cover expenses and are dependent on input from funders” (67).

4 The research project was funded by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (Grant 410-2010-2446).

5 Benefit regimes vary between provinces. In Ontario, people in receipt of provincial disability benefits can earn up to $200 a month without penalty. Beyond this amount, 50 percent of any additional earned income is deducted from the subsequent month’s disability payment.

Additional information

Funding

This article is based on research funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (#410–876682).

Notes on contributors

Joshua Evans

JOSHUA EVANS is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 2E3, Canada. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests include inner-city health and mental health recovery.

Robert Wilton

ROBERT WILTON is a Professor in the School of Geography and Earth Sciences at McMaster University, Hamilton, ON L8S 4M1, Canada. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests include the geographies of disability and mental ill-health.