Feminism and a Vital Politics of Depression and Recovery

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xi

   PDF

2. Introduction: Towards a Vital Feminist Politics

   • Simone Fullagar, Wendy O’Brien, Adele Pavlidis

   Pages 1-26

3. Rhizomatic Movements and Gendered Knots of ‘Bad Feelings’

   • Simone Fullagar, Wendy O’Brien, Adele Pavlidis

   Pages 27-59

4. Reconfiguring Recovery Beyond Linearity

   • Simone Fullagar, Wendy O’Brien, Adele Pavlidis

   Pages 61-106

5. Motherhood, Hauntings and the Affective Arrangement of Care

   • Simone Fullagar, Wendy O’Brien, Adele Pavlidis

   Pages 107-138

6. Moving-Transforming Bodyminds

   • Simone Fullagar, Wendy O’Brien, Adele Pavlidis

   Pages 139-170

7. Creative Enactments in More-Than-Human Worlds

   • Simone Fullagar, Wendy O’Brien, Adele Pavlidis

   Pages 171-200

8. Reimagining Feminist Futures: Vital Politics, Disruptive Pedagogies

   • Simone Fullagar, Wendy O’Brien, Adele Pavlidis

   Pages 201-236

9. Back Matter

   Pages 237-245

   PDF

Drawing upon insights from feminist new materialism the book traces the complex material-discursive processes through which women’s recovery from depression is enacted within a gendered biopolitics. Within the biomedical assemblage that connects mental health policy, service provision, research and everyday life, the gendered context of recovery remains little understood despite the recurrence and pervasiveness of depression. Rather than reducing experience to discrete biological, psychological or sociological categories, feminist thinking moves with the biopsychosocialities implicated in both distress and lively modes of becoming well. Using a post-qualitative approach, the book creatively re-presents how women ‘do’ recovery within and beyond the normalising imperatives of biomedical and psychotherapeutic practices. By pursuing the affective movement of self through depression this inquiry goes beyond individualised models to explore the enactment of multiple self-world relations. Reconfiguring depression and recovery as bodymind matters opens up a relational ontology concerned with the entanglement of gender inequities and mental (ill) health.

• Biopolitics
• Feminist theory
• Mental Health
• Health
• Medical Sociology
• Gender Studies

“Feminism and a Vital Politics of depression and recovery by Simone Fullagar, Wendy O’Brien and Adele Pavlidis … is an invitation to reconfigure discourses, imaginaries and narratives on mental health from a new materialist approach, by moving beyond individual problems to collective experiences that shape a feminist ethos.” (Marina Riera-Retamero, Matter, Journal of New Materialist Research, Vol. 1 (2), 2020)

• Department of Tourism, Hotel and Sport Management, Griffith University, Southport, Australia

  Simone Fullagar

• Department of Tourism, Hotel and Sport Management, Griffith University, Nathan, Australia

  Wendy O’Brien

• Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research, Griffith University, Southport, Australia

  Adele Pavlidis

Simone Fullagar is a Professor (women in sport) at Griffith University, Australia and was previously Chair of the Physical Culture, Sport and Health research group at the University of Bath, UK. As an interdisciplinary sociologist Simone undertakes research on physical cultures, gender and power, and embodied mental health and wellbeing. Her work draws upon post-structuralist feminist and new materialist theories.


Wendy O’Brien is an adjunct Research Fellow and interdisciplinary sociologist working within the Griffith Business School. Drawing on theories of affect and new materialism her research explores mental health, women’s well-being, active embodiment, elite sport and liveability.


Adele Pavlidis is a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research at Griffith University, Australia. Her work focuses on affective-discursive relations and the ways health and wellbeing are enabled or impeded by a range of sport and physical cultural practices. 

Policies and ethics