ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to bridge the contributions in the first section of the book and demonstrate the centrality of political organizing of people with psychiatric experience in the emergence and further development of Mad Studies. The focus is on key characteristics of knowledge making processes that take place alongside political organizing as distinct to the concepts of knowledge and conventional methods of knowledge production in the academic world. In light of her own activist experiences, the author discusses the emancipatory power but also limitations inherent in social movements. The latter relate to ‘single-issue struggles’ and ‘strategic essentialism’. Mad Studies is perceived as a continuation of the movements of psychiatric survivors and people with psychosocial disabilities on a different level. The author argues that the scholarship rooted in these movements has the potential to overcome their weaknesses and strengthen their contribution.
