Fathers, mental ill health and the family assemblage

In this thesis, I develop and employ the emerging concept of the “family assemblage” to explore how the material, social, discursive and affective components of family life are related to the expression and management of fathers’ mental ill health, as well as fathers’ recovery trajectories. My analysis, which is grounded in an ethnographic study conducted in Melbourne, Australia, challenges individualistic and human-centric conceptualisations of mental ill health and recovery, offering a novel vision on the relationships between men’s mental ill health and their family lives.