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Feminism and a Vital Politics of Depression and Recovery pp 27–59Cite as

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Rhizomatic Movements and Gendered Knots of ‘Bad Feelings’

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Abstract

This chapter explores the visceral materiality of the knot to think through the rhizomatic movement of depression-recovery, where bad feelings produce and are produced through the disruptive affects of women’s lives. There is an ongoing need to surface the gendering of depression and recovery in order to disrupt the individualising of responsibility and self-blame for ‘bad feelings’. The ontological assumptions of the biopsychosocial model wilfully and irresponsibly ignore the sociocultural, economic and political conditions. As an alternative we think with the biopsychosocialities and affective forces that act through women’s different capacities and desires. Rather than abandon subjectivity in favour of pure externality—networks, assemblages, flows and so on—we think them together as post-humanist feminism concerned with the affective contours of contemporary life.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    We use the broader term rhizomatic thinking rather than more specific terms, such as schizoanalysis, as a move away from terminology that can enact stigmatisation and saneism in unanticipated ways despite the intention to emphasise the contradictory conditions that constitute madness that gave rise to Deleuze and Guattari’s ideas. Although this term was used to subvert psychoanalytic approaches, there is an irony in the reterritorialising potential of such ‘assemblages of enunciation’ (Guattari & Zayani, 1998). For further discussion on such issues raised within the mad movement, see LeFrançois, Menzies, and Reaume (2013).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Tourism, Hotel and Sport Management, Griffith University, Southport, QLD, Australia

    Simone Fullagar

  2. Department of Health, University of Bath, Bath, UK

    Simone Fullagar

  3. Department of Tourism, Hotel and Sport Management, Griffith University, Nathan, QLD, Australia

    Wendy O’Brien

  4. Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research, Griffith University, Southport, QLD, Australia

    Adele Pavlidis

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  1. Simone Fullagar
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  2. Wendy O’Brien
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  3. Adele Pavlidis
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Correspondence to Simone Fullagar .

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Fullagar, S., O’Brien, W., Pavlidis, A. (2019). Rhizomatic Movements and Gendered Knots of ‘Bad Feelings’. In: Feminism and a Vital Politics of Depression and Recovery. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11626-2_2

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