Publication Date
2021
Document Type
Article
Abstract
In the traditional health information landscape, patriarchal knowledge practices of expertise, neutrality, objectivity, and ownership are held as the standard. This paper will explore zines as feminist mental health resources that embody radical care and subvert these knowledge practices. There are many personal zines on the topic of mental health, ranging from outlining self care strategies for overall mental wellness to deeper discussions of serious mental illness (trauma, mood disorders, personality disorders, etc). Even when not an explicitly feminist theme, I argue that these health zines are in themselves a feminist act. By utilizing attributes of feminist knowledge production, such as Personal Narrative, Embodiment, Intimacy, and Consciousness Raising, these zines disrupt the patriarchal information landscape. This disruption occurs by 1. questioning the notion of authority by (re)claiming lived experience expertise; 2. inviting readers into a conversation; and 3. (re)situating creators in an information landscape that often devalues and marginalizes their voices. Therefore, I aim to demonstrate that mental health zines represent an engaging opportunity for a feminist pedagogy in teaching health information literacy.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Chenevey, Liz, "Embodied Care: Exploring Mental Health Zines as Feminist Health Resources" (2021). Libraries. 211.
https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/letfspubs/211
Included in
Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, Library and Information Science Commons
