Our process

What do we mean by ‘mutual learning’?

 

Calls for mutuality have gained traction in global mental health research and activism, expressing the aspiration to produce knowledge more equitably across epistemic and power differences. With funding, convening, and publishing power still largely concentrated in elite academic and policy institutions in the global north, efforts to decolonize global health knowledge production have articulated the need for mutual learning between diverse communities to mitigate the power imbalances in global partnerships, between academic disciplines, and to include voices that have been deprioritized within the evidence-based paradigm. 

This project aspired to create a mutual learning process by decentralising power and viewing all partners as equal and active agents for change. The guiding principles to establish a space and relations of mutual learning at the outset were: create flat hierarchies, ensure power sharing through co-facilitation, work through collaborative decision making, and provide resources and administrative support. Participants were provided with the resources they needed to join and compensated for time spent in meetings.

Objectives. The aim of our project was to:

  1. Improve interdisciplinarity across epistemic divides by developing common concepts, measures, and actions to operationalize a “social” paradigm

  2. Promote mutual learning and power sharing through equitable dialogue between experts from the global north/south, academics/non-academics, qualitative/quantitative researchers

  3. Develop collaborative outputs together - articles, blogs, guidance documents, funding proposals - which apply the concepts and methods generated through these discussions in and across contexts and with sustainability in mind.

Leadership & Listening. This collaboration has been started by scholars in social epidemiology, anthropology, community psychology, public mental health, human-centred design and implementation science from King’s College London and University College London. All have for years worked in parallel to shift the mental health paradigm towards the social dimension of mental health in diverse global communities. While they strive to better communicate across academic disciplines, they equally value the inclusion of the professionals and affected communities working on the ground. The leadership in creating processes of “mutual learning” is thus first and foremost one of listening, combined with a commitment to producing relevant knowledge and action with community partners.