An Introduction to the International Mad Studies Journal: A Collective Reflection on Processes, Movements, Journeys, Futures, and Unfurlings

The International Mad Studies Journal (IMSJ) was founded by a psychiatric survivor in Naarm (Melbourne, Australia). This was in the context of working in academia and seeing the challenges of producing alternative knowledges and ideas in mental health. They gathered like-minded people together, predominately from Australia, but also from across the world. The group included Mad scholars who were consumers, survivors or ex-patients of mental health services, as well as aspiring allies from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds and professions. Together, we wanted to challenge the dominance of traditional mental health discourse, both inside and outside the academy. We wanted to actualise the visions that have been held by many in the past about showcasing and celebrating Mad knowledge and perspectives.

Mad Studies arose from within the Mad community itself, and draws upon many decades of critical scholarship about Madness, especially the way that Mad people and Mad experiences have been hidden, marginalised and silenced. In this way, Mad Studies has more synergy with Critical Disability Studies, Queer Studies, Critical Race Studies and Trans Studies, each arising from their associated social movements, rather than from conventional academic and professional disciplines (‘critical’ or otherwise). Mad Studies has significant synergies and intersections with those movements and studies too. The development of Mad Studies corresponded with increasing numbers of Mad identified people doing scholarly work, especially doctoral work, whom David Reville has referred to as ‘high knowledge crazies’ (as cited in Spandler et al., 2013). Several key texts have been published in the field, most notably the edited collections Mad Matters: A Critical Reader in Canadian Mad Studies (Menzies, Le Francois and Reaume, 2013) and The Routledge International Handbook of Mad Studies (Beresford and Russo, 2022). We wanted to support and develop this work by producing a fully open access journal for Mad Studies. Whilst there is plenty of ‘critical’ scholarship about the ‘psy’ professions (psychiatry, psychology, psychotherapy and allied disciplines), there is no specific journal which focuses on more radical approaches to mental health practice, policy and politics. There certainly is no academic journal which foregrounds critical Mad-centred knowledge. The IMSJ community sought to rectify that.