Patrick McNamara: The Neuroscience of Religious Experience

Book Review Patrick McNamara: The Neuroscience of Religious Experience. Cambridge University Press 2009

Overlapping Multi-hop Clustering for Wireless Sensor Networks

Clustering is a standard approach for achieving efficient and scalable performance in wireless sensor networks. Traditionally, clustering algorithms aim at generating a number of disjoint clusters that satisfy some criteria. In this paper, we formulate a novel clustering problem that aims at generating overlapping multi-hop clusters. Overlapping clusters are useful in many sensor network applications, including inter-cluster routing, node localization, and time synchronization protocols. We also propose a randomized, distributed multi-hop clustering algorithm (KOCA) for solving the overlapping clustering problem. KOCA aims at generating connected overlapping clusters that cover the entire sensor network with a specific average overlapping degree. Through analysis and simulation experiments we show how to select the different values of the parameters to achieve the clustering process objectives. Moreover, the results show that KOCA produces approximately equal-sized clusters, which allows distributing the load evenly over different clusters. In addition, KOCA is scalable; the clustering formation terminates in a constant time regardless of the network size

The muddle of institutional racism in mental health [Commentary]

The murder of George Floyd has reinvigorated the call for anti‐racism across the Global North, and mental health bodies have joined this political moment. Yet, discussions of racism in mental health are nothing new (Bailey et al., 2017; Fernando, 2017; Fernando et al., 1998; McKenzie & Bhui, 2007; Nazroo et al., 2020; Richards, 1997). Certainly, the COVID‐19 pandemic has revealed the extent to which racial inequalities play a detrimental role in health outcomes (Nazroo et al., 2020). The point of this commentary is not to summarise the works on racism and mental health. Rather, the following is a reflection on the hurdles of anti‐racism in mental health, as situated within a neoliberal order. It will outline the challenges in addressing racism as a dynamic process in allegedly post‐racial world—racism without racists (Bonilla‐Silva, 2017). Given these structural inequalities, scholars increasingly underline how anti‐racist praxis in mental health must consider macro‐level policies (Came & Griffith, 2018; Nazroo et al., 2020). The focus in this commentary will be the Prevent policy, the UK's counter‐radicalisation duty and a wing of the nation's counter‐terrorism strategy. [...

The psychologisation of counter-extremism: unpacking PREVENT

The burgeoning ‘pre-crime’ industry reveals a deep overlap between national security and mental health. The uk’s counter-radicalisation policy, PREVENT, is exemplary in this regard. PREVENT mandates a duty for public bodies, such as healthcare staff, to identify and report ‘at risk’ individuals in the ‘war on terror’. Research has shown how racialised Muslims embody ‘threat’ in public consciousness, though the uk government denies institutionalising racism. This article explores how British nationalism in a ‘post-racial era’ necessitates psychologisation to evade the charge of racism in the management of Muslim political agency. By unpacking PREVENT policy documents and training, this article will explore how the counter-radicalisation industry of the ‘war on terror’ reveals the triangular relationship between 1) racialisation of Muslims under nationalism, 2) psychologisation of the political and its associated colourblindness, and 3) the nation-state’s management of dissent. The various performative dimensions of psychologisation will be discussed, as they relate to universalising, detecting and managing the threat of radicalisation. This article will conclude with a proposition: psychologisation is necessary in conceptualising state repression and institutional racism in the modern age

Politicizing Muslim mental health toward a decolonial framework

There is a growing recognition that mental illness should be taken more seriously within Muslim communities. In this are emerging trends to Islamicise psychology or psychologise Islam, whereby the former attempts to adapt contemporary psychological practices for Muslims, while the latter endeavours to indigenise and establish a psychology rooted firmly in Islamic traditions. Yet a large body of interdisciplinary works has argued that Muslims are uniquely positioned vis-à-vis Nation-States across the Global North. There is thus a need to underscore the significance of the political which underpins the relationship between ‘Muslim’ and ‘mental health’. The political will be explored by addressing three paradigms and their particular relationship to Muslim mental health: neoliberalism, nationalism and securitisation. I argue that Muslim mental health, irrespective of approach or discipline, is unique in its ability to serve power and ensure Muslims remain productive, loyal and low-risk citizens of the Nation-State. Emerging Muslim mental health models may succeed in their stated objective—alleviate suffering or raise God consciousness—but they do not address the political dimension underlying mental health practice itself. I argue that a movement towards decolonising mental health must remain in constant dialectical resistance with dominant ideological paradigms and be rooted in an interdisciplinary praxis established upon the Islamic paradigm of trusteeship (waqf). This ensures suffering is neither commodified nor compartmentalised outside of the wider Western Muslim experience