Abolition and mental health: pitch us

Text reading "call for pitches: abolition and mental health" on a beige background with purple, pink, orange and blue abstract shapes

NSUN (The National Survivor User Network) is a membership organisation of people and grassroots groups with lived experience of mental ill-health, distress, and trauma. We are looking to commission written pieces on abolition and mental health for a new series.

We are interested in how an abolitionist reframing of issues around mental health, madness, and disability – and the abolition (rather than reform) of punitive, oppressive, violent and/or carceral systems, institutions, and practice in a U.K. context – sparks new possibilities, questions, and pathways towards change and liberation.

Themes/areas of focus within abolition and mental health:

  • Care work aligning (or not aligning) with carceral systems
  • Mutual aid and community organising as alternatives to institutions and carceral systems
  • Neoliberalism and austerity
  • Criminalisation of distress
  • Immigration detention and the hostile environment
  • Data and surveillance
  • ‘Policing’ in education

Guidelines

Payment to the selected writers will be £100 per piece.

We are looking for commissioned articles to be between 1,000-2,000 words in length and in the style of an opinion piece, reported feature or critical essay.

We are not looking for academic pieces of writing but welcome referenced work. We are not currently looking to commission fiction or poetry.

We will only be accepting pitches from U.K. based writers with lived experience of mental ill-health, trauma, and/or distress. We welcome pitches from previously unpublished writers.

Timeframes

The deadline to pitch using this form is midnight on the 1st October 2021.

We will get back to you to let you know whether or not we are able to commission your piece by the 15th October.

The deadline for completed commissioned pieces will then be the 12th November 2021, with the aim of publishing the pieces in the last two weeks of November on the NSUN website (https://www.nsun.org.uk/policy-and-articles/).

Please get in touch with NSUN’s Communications Assistant Kaiisha at kaiisha.kukendra@nsun.org.uk if you require any assistance.

Pitch

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