Serve, subvert or emancipate? Promoting mental health in Australian immigration detention

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dc.contributor.authorMcLoughlin, P.
dc.date.issued2006
dc.description.abstractIn recent years, Immigration Detention Centres (IDC) have become sites of increasing concern in Australia, due to their notoriously negative impact on the mental health of detained asylum seekers. In this paper, I question whether it is possible and beneficial to promote mental health in what might be thought of as an inherently 'unhealthy' setting. Drawing upon health promotion theory and a Foucauldian approach to power, I critique the effectiveness of two major forms of health promoting work carried out in the immigration detention setting: internally-organised services and externally-organised support and advocacy. Given the problematic nature of the detention setting, I argue that the 'effectiveness' of these efforts is bound up in their capacity for subverting or positively reforming the IDC system itself as a barrier to mental health.
dc.description.statementofresponsibilityPauline J McLoughlin
dc.identifier.citationAdvances in Mental Health, 2006; 5(2):145-154
dc.identifier.doi10.5172/jamh.5.2.145
dc.identifier.issn1446-7984
dc.identifier.issn1837-4905
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/2440/66263
dc.language.isoen
dc.publisherAuseinet
dc.rightsCopyright status unknown
dc.source.urihttps://doi.org/10.5172/jamh.5.2.145
dc.subjectmental health promotion
dc.subjectmental health
dc.subjectasylum seekers
dc.subjectimmigration detention
dc.subjectFoucault
dc.subjectmulticultural mental health
dc.titleServe, subvert or emancipate? Promoting mental health in Australian immigration detention
dc.typeJournal article
pubs.publication-statusPublished

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