The role of the ‘ambiguous home’ in service users’ management of their mental health

Abstract

We wish to acknowledge the precious time and trust of the respondents, as well as the organizations that helped us connect to them. We also acknowledge the support of the University of Southampton Department of Geography and Environmental Science, particularly of Graham Moon. TITLE: The role of the 'ambiguous home' in service users' management of their mental health INTRODUCTIONGeographies of mental health and housing have traditionally focused on issues of pattern and mobility (e.g. DeVerteuil et al, 2007a;

Liquid home? Financialisation of the built environment in the UK’s “hotel‐style” care homes

“…Processes of financialisation are thus entangled with wider patterns of precariousness, displacement, and “domicide” – “the deliberate destruction of home that causes suffering to its inhabitants” (Porteous & Smith, 2001, p. ix). In some senses, scholarship on these themes has sought to recuperate the concept of home, amid critiques by feminist, queer, critical race, and disability studies perspectives that have highlighted the oppressive and exclusionary relations operating within and around home (Blunt & Dowling, 2006; Lowe & Deverteuil, 2020; McDowell, 1983). Such problematic relations can be especially acute in the case of care homes, where residents with a range of disabilities, diseases, and vulnerabilities may be deprived of privacy, autonomy, and mobility (Hyde et al., 2014).…”

Stasis disguised as motion: Waiting, endurance and the camouflaging of austerity in mental health services

“…These mobilities are similar to but distinct from the institutional “cycling” described by earlier geographers of deinstitutionalisation (DeVerteuil, 2003, p. 362), which was characterised by unrelated institutions (DeVerteuil, 2003) and a lack of bureaucratic oversight (Knowles, 2000); in contrast, the holding pattern is more regulated inasmuch as institutions organise formal transfers of care. Like all mobilities, the holding pattern emerges from relations of power and force (Cresswell, 2010; see also Massey, 1994), reflecting the relative powerlessness of service users/survivors and with potentially deleterious effects on mental health (Lowe & DeVerteuil, 2020a, 2020b). Under strain from austerity (O’Hara, 2017) following decades of underfunding (Parsonage, 2005), services are incentivised to discharge their patients; yet they remain responsible for their patients’ future behaviour and the management of risks they may present to themselves or others in the community (Moon, 2000; Rose, 1996).…”