An International Workshop at NTU, Singapore

For the past three decades, abundant research on mental disorders and mental health in East Asia has focused on the power-relations between the colonizers and the colonized, and the exploitation of Western hegemonic scientific knowledge on ‘Eastern’ subjects. With the emergence of newfangled critical theories, post-colonial and orientalist approaches seem not able to catch up with the pace of studies in transnational history, Sinophone studies and research that uses Asia as methods. This workshop, therefore, aims to bring together scholars who have been working on mental disorders and mental health issues in broadly defined Chinese contexts with developmental feedback on either their site-specific case studies or conceptual enquiries on an informal platform. Participants are encouraged to examine how categories of mental disorders, notions of mental health and formations of mental health professions are open to a myriad of interpretations determined by class, race, gender, institutions and the state in Chinese national and transnational backgrounds. Through this one-day discussion, we expect participants to mutually inspire one another, generate cutting-edge research and form potential collaboration networks in the field. The workshop will also advertise to attract clinicians, mental health professionals and other human sciences practitioners in order to foster interdisciplinary dialogues. 

This workshop will formalize the public impact of the AHRC-funded research network project titled ‘China and the Human Sciences: 1600 to the Present’, with the aim of aiding practitioners and researchers in the human sciences (including the health profession) foster a stronger appreciation of the humanistic dimensions of their work, including its historical, social, cultural, and political underpinnings, which would in turn benefit their subsequent interactions with people outside their specialty.