Mind and Body Spaces

Highlights international research from Britain, USA, Canada and Australia on bodily impairment, mental health and disabling social worlds.
Just as geographies of race, gender, class and sexuality have drawn attention to how complex power relations in society are spatialized, so geographies of illness and impairment offer a deeper understanding of the world. In recent years geographers have increasingly engaged with both the theoretical debates surrounding ill or impaired bodies, and also the lived realities of ill/impaired experience. This text highlights international research (from Britain, USA, Canada, Australia) on bodily impairment, mental health and disabling social worlds. Its fusion of geographical analyses provide a commentary on a range of different spatial "settings", including the nation, urban and rural spaces, work spaces, the "caring" institution, the street and the home, in which different minds and bodies are always located. The contributors discuss varied issues concerning physical impairment and mental health, ranging from historical conceptions of the body and behaviour to contemporary political activism. This range of concerns also includes matters of identity and employment, accessible housing, parenthood and child carers, psychiatric medication use, masculinity, sexuality, autobiography, social