Depression and mental health in neoliberal times: A critical analysis of policy and discourse

Depression has received increasing attention as a significant public health issue over the past ten years, both in Canada and elsewhere in the industrialized west. During the same period, many of the social and economic policies adopted by governments in these jurisdictions have reflected neoliberal goals and orientations. The purpose of this article is to explore the points of contact between these two features of contemporary social and political life in the industrialized west, using the Canadian province of British Columbia as an empirical site. My analysis draws on the Foucauldian literature on governmentality in presenting a close reading of provincial government documents concerned with depression and mental health literacy that have been produced since the election of the Liberal Party to office in British Columbia in 2001. This analysis identifies discourses of "responsibilization" circulating in these documents, within which individuals, families, communities and workplaces - rather than publicly-funded services - appear as key resources in responding to experiences of mental distress. It also points to a number of strategies visible in the documents that work to align the interests of individuals and their practitioners in pursuing particular approaches to treatment with a governing interest in reducing public spending on services and supports. The article concludes by identifying a number of resistive discourses and proposing further research in a range of empirical contexts within which they may be evident.British Columbia Canada Depression Evidence-based Governmentality Mental health literacy Neoliberalism

Gender analysis and social change: Testing the water

Copyright © 2006 Policy and Society Associates (APSS)This paper uses preliminary findings from an ARC-funded Linkage grant to speculate on the requirements for producing gender analysis as a change process. Gender analysis, commonly associated with gender mainstreaming, is a methodology aimed at ensuring that all projects, programs and policies are gender-inclusive and gendersensitive. In the Linkage study existing models of gender analysis taken from Canada and The Netherlands are being tested for their usefulness in selected agencies in South Australia and Western Australia. The goal is to design gender analysis processes appropriate to specific Australian contexts. This paper reflects on the challenges and obstacles encountered in the project to date. It focuses in particular on the importance of creating space for extended debate and discussion of the concepts and issues relevant to gender equality and social change. The authors describe this space as “somewhere in the middle”.Carol Bacchi, Joan Eveline, Jennifer Binns, Catherine Mackenzie and Susan Harwoo