Curative and Mad Futurities: The Temporal Implications of Peer Support Inclusion within Mental Health Systems
摘要
The emergence of peer support work as a discipline offers potential to humanise mental healthcare. However, the inclusion of peer support within formal mental health systems has also been critiqued for co-opting peer values and practices, such that peer support becomes another form of psy-care. In this chapter, I consider such potentials through a temporal lens, asking: What are the (im)possibilities of Mad time in relation to peer support within mental health systems? Drawing together Mad theorising with peer support worker discussions, I argue inclusion entangles peer support practices in psy-regimes of temporal surveillance and normalisation. Yet peer support relations; Mad time, Mad bodyminds, and Mad care, also hold potential for disrupting normative (and often stifling) temporalities associated with progress, with productivity, and with overcoming madness. I consider how peer support may foster temporal belonging and futures where Mad existences, knowledges and practices are valued.