Well Enough to Work? Social Enterprise Employment and the Geographies of Mental Health Recovery

Abstract

This article examines the significance of paid work and workplaces for people living with mental ill health. Employment and workplaces have been largely absent in the mental health geography literature in part because of the persistent problems that people with mental ill health face in finding and retaining paid work; yet paid work and questions of productivity remain central to the very meaning of mental illness in capitalist society. To address this gap, we report on research involving social enterprises in Canada that reduce barriers to participation in paid work. Through the provision of accommodations and supports, these enterprise sites challenge the disabling division of labor characteristic of mainstream workplaces. In so doing, they provide a context in which people, understanding themselves as “well enough to work,” can enact new forms of economic subjectivity. The meaning of paid work in these alternative sites remains defined in relation to the norms of the capitalist economy, however. Thinking beyond these narrowly defined conceptions of wellness and productivity offers an important avenue for future mental health geographies.