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Paradigm Humility and Appropriate Methodology in Global Mental Health
Dr Ross White, University of GlasgowDr Richard Fay, University of Manchester
Overview
• Reflecting on the centrality of ‘equity’ to GMH.
• Considering the need for ‘paradigm humility’ in glocal sites of research activity and knowledge exchange.
• Seeing parallels between GMH and critical language studies – the role of ‘appropriate methodology’.
• Adopting ethnographic perspectives on research activity
GMH
• Global mental health area of study, practice and research concerned with addressing inequities in mental health promotion across the globe.
• Equity: fairness or justice in the way people are treated
But what ball-park are we trying to give people equitable access to?
Equitable access to… baseball
But
• What are the rules of the game?
• Who is allowed to play?
• What particular skills and techniques do the players have?
• Are these skills obvious, relevant and meaningful to the people watching? (excellence vs. relevance – Tol et al., 2012)
The ‘World Series’ – Baseball Goes Global
• Bemme & D’Souza (2014): the globalization of particular forms of intervention has not been a principal concern of GMH. Instead a key feature of GMH has been the dissemination and utilization of particular epistemologies and research methodologies for evaluating interventions across the globe.
• Kirmayer and Swartz (2013): The GMH agenda should embrace a ‘pluralistic view of knowledge’, which can be integrated into empirical paradigms guiding GMH-related research
Cultural Humility Begets Paradigm Humility
• Three main components of cultural humility :– Lifelong commitment to self-evaluation and self-critique, – Fixing power imbalances– Developing partnerships with people and groups who
advocate for others (Waters & Asbill, 2013)• Humility needs to be applied with regard to
epistemologies and research methodologies – particularly in light of concerns expressed about Evidence Based Medicine (Thomas et al., 2012; Kirmayer, 2012; Bemme & D’Souza, 2014).
Appropriate Methodology• Critical Education Tradition of ‘Appropriate Methodology’ developed
through a cross-cultural interest in English language education - TESOL.
• “The methodology of English language education has been developed mainly in the English-speaking countries of 'the west' and does not always fit the needs of the rest of the world… (there Is a need to look) at the wider social context of what happens between teachers and students… (This includes using an) ethnographic framework to explore the complex and diverse cultures of classrooms, of student groups and teacher communities in different countries and educational environments….these factors have to be acknowledged in the design and implementation of appropriate methodologies” (Holliday, 1994).
Appropriate Methodology
• Diverse forms of theorizing e.g. Decolonizing Methodology (Smith, 2012) and Southern Theory (Connell, 2007) have emerged to challenge hegemonic ontologies, epistemologies and dominant flows (that tend to originate in the Global North).
• Researchers can be ethnographers of their own practice. This facilitates an understanding of emergent ‘small cultures’ rather than self-fulfilling, and often essentialized, ‘large culture’ prescriptions of activities (Holliday, 1994, 1999).
• Ethnographic approaches to cultures of research.
