Arts-based methods as a critical and decolonising process in global mental health: Reflections on popular discourse, artistic rigour and limitations.

Abstract

Due to masculine expectations and cultural perceptions, Luo and Busoga men, in their respective countries of Kenya and Uganda, can experience a range of mental health conditions which can lead to violent and problematic behaviours. Over an 18 month period in 2022/23, Masculinities and Mental Health used bottom-up, culturally responsive, arts and health workshops to seek to understand the cultural causes of stress and depression reported by men in Luo and Busoga cultures. The project included a two month arts-based residency in Osiri village, Kisumu County (Kenya) and a four week residency in Walukuba, Jinja (Uganda) working with groups of men to explore definitions of mental health via arts-based research methodologies. This article will present examples from the research whilst critically interrogating the possibilities of arts-based research contributing to an ongoing process of decolonising mental health practices in East Africa. The paper is focused on three dilemmas and learnings that occurred during the project; balancing the relationship between popular and progressive ideas in health care research, the complications of developing the 'art' in arts-based research and the inherent limitations of arts-based research in developing impact. I argue that arts-based research can effectively contribute to wider efforts of decolonising mental health by enabling participatory spaces to explore indigenous knowledge and lived experience. However, such efforts could be advanced if arts-based research engaged with systemic structures which enforce Global North practices and ignore culturally specific understandings of mental health.