Bio
Louise Tam is a PhD candidate in the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies at Rutgers University. Her research interests include the social organization of mental health services, the institutionalization of anti-oppressive practice, and the political economy of disability/disablement in settler colonial contexts. Her dissertation, “Palliative States,” maps racialized migrants' navigation of the Canadian mental health, immigration, and criminal justice systems. In particular, she interrogates the uses of psychiatric evidence in immigration proceedings for securing legal status and safety.
Louise has published journal articles and book chapters in the fields of Ethnic Studies, Disability Studies, and American Studies on Asian American counseling psychology, mental patients’ rights movements, and psychiatry behind bars. Her research has been supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada and the Rutgers Center for Cultural Analysis. Most recently, she taught a seminar on intersectionality, disability, and health in the School of Health Policy and Management at York University.