Congratulations to Sebastián Rojas-Navarro, Samanta Alarcón-Arcos and Ismael Tabilo-Prieto for their article titled “Spectralities of ADHD: hauntological diagnosis amidst agency, politics and pedagogies”.
It is our pleasure to announce that this year they have been awarded the ENPA Prize for a Remarkable Published Paper in Psychological Anthropology in 2024
The article was published in Health Sociology Review on 19 February 2024 and is available here: https://doi.org/10.1080/14461242.2024.2316736
The ENPA Board would like to congratulate you for this valuable work, which, in addition to its scientific rigor, constitutes a significant contribution to the current debates on this topic within and outside academia. Also, for its relevance in terms of the ENPA network, which aims to promote critical, transdisciplinary, and globally relevant research in psychological anthropology.
In the last 20 years, the rates of developmental delays and disorders in children seem to have increased internationally. New developmental screenings and diagnostic devices have been developed. In that framework the article critically examines a topic that is currently significant in terms of child development and their future, specifically ADHD diagnosis. Although it focuses on fieldwork in Chilean institutions, the phenomenon it analyses goes beyond one country and is a clear example of this era characterized by the excessive biomedicalization of childhood and the consequent concern on how this process has decisive impacts on the identity and well-being of children and their families, and, at the same time, on health and education professionals. Although this is not the focus of the article, this situation can be perceived in the testimonies collected in the article.
Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork that includes participant observations, analysis of documents and in-depth interviews with children diagnosed with ADHD in a Chilean school but also clinicians and educators, the authors examine how diagnosis not only names and intervenes in children’s lives but also how this mental health diagnosis reshapes the everyday reality of diagnosed children. The analysis presented is meticulous, creative and powerful. They used Hauntology as a theoretical approach and, by treating diagnosis as a spectral force, the article explores the entanglements between past experiences, institutional demands, and possible futures, contributing to broader debates in psychological anthropology on subjectivity, care, and the politics of mental health.
The article makes several contributions to the field. One of the most relevant is to highlight, informed by hauntological thinking, how the diagnosis creates a recurring experience, potentially limiting the future for the diagnosed child. As they argue, the analysis clearly shows how ADHD, framed as a mental health disorder, haunts and intertwines with several social, cultural, and political complexities. The article ends with a critical reflection about care. The authors conclude by asking how children’s mental health can become a matter of care in the daily life of schools, but also in other areas where we build what we call society every day. They defend that the promotion of more caring practices concerning children in schools is the only course of action that can be advocated. While acknowledging the complexity and risks commonly associated with mental health diagnoses, it is argued that, rather than being disregarded, there is a need to pay closer attention to the communication content of such diagnoses. It is important to recognize that these concepts are social constructs, which carry with them social imaginaries, expectations, fears, and hopes. While the present article has focused on the case of ADHD, it is argued that this analysis can be generalized to other conditions, and it is suggested that future research should delve deeper into these issues. It is believed that this approach paves the way for the development of diagnostic practices that are characterized by greater thoughtfulness, thereby transcending mere classification and embracing the creation of more heterogeneous, respectful, and diverse forms of living together.
This article is a worthy winner of this year’s Prize for a Remarkable Published Paper in Psychological Anthropology.
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