#HASTalks is a seminar series curated by The Department of Health, Aging & Society at McMaster University.

Loa Gordon is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Anthropology at McMaster University and will be a postdoctoral scholar in McMaster’s department of Health, Aging & Society in the Fall of 2024. She is also the Assistant Director of McMaster’s Centre for Advanced Research on Mental Health and Society (ARMS).

IS SELF-CARE REALLY JUST ABOUT THE SELF?

In this talk, Loa Gordon discusses the results from her doctoral research on performances of mental health self-care in Canadian higher education. Her ethnographic study explores how self-care is mobilized when young adults are confronted with inadequate therapeutic modalities that do not attend to their lived realities of distress and redress. Using data generated from participant-observation, in depth interviewing, and social cartography, Loa presents three case studies that complicate our understanding of self-care related to: (1) the impossible challenge of finding time to rest, (2) the role of imagination in hope and healing, and (3) the difficulties of navigating pathways through care. Taken together, these studies elucidate how self-care is an entangled practice that centrally involves other social actors and more-than-human forces. She speculates on the creation of futures where interdependence and solidarity foster wellbeing.

ALL are welcome to attend this FREE online session!

Register for this event via Zoom 

Please note: This session may be recorded. Please be aware that any materials entered, exchanged, or viewed by participants during the session may be recorded.