By: Nicholas R. Sherwood
For two weeks, I conducted fieldwork in Nairobi and Diani Beach, Kenya, as part of MHCR’s ongoing grant projects with the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A group of us—including MHCR Director, Antti Pentikäinen, and Programs Officer, Hannah Adamson——also met with colleagues and collaborators on these grants to plan and implement a three-day Co-Creation Workshop on Integrating Mental Health/Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) and Peacebuilding throughout the Horn of Africa. This was also an opportunity to deepen my dissertation research through participant observation and interviews. Below are some of my reflections from the trip, as both a researcher and practitioner whose work spans global mental health and the psychology of peacebuilding practitioners.
Leaving my home of Athens, Georgia, for this trip, I had a packed suitcase, charged laptop, and exactly zero expectations of how this would all play out. My previous fieldwork experiences were fairly limited (though I know I’m meant to be a fieldwork kind of guy). Under Antti’s supervision, I facilitated trauma healing and resilience-building workshops in Muscat, Oman, a few years ago. I also did similar workshopping and hosted mental health panels at the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival with my nonprofit. What I love most about the field is the constant, low-grade (sometimes high-grade!) excitement. In one of my psychology courses, I tested off the charts for having a “sensation-seeking personality,” I believe international fieldwork to be one of the healthiest and most productive contexts for this personality syndrome. In short, I love being fast-paced, unpredictable, and somewhat chaotic work environments. I love having your wits, and sometimes your wits alone, to navigate complex and nuanced situations. Add another layer of language differences and the pressing need for cultural competency, and I am in a professional heaven of sorts.
Of course, like all fieldwork experiences, “the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry” (thank you, Robert Burns), and so did the Kenya adventure. Upon landing in Nairobi, making it to my AirBnB, and getting up for work the next day, I showed up to our ‘office—’ a wonderful cafe called “Kesh Kesh,” owned by one of my peace partners and her husband—and was informed many of the logistics required to transport approximately 40 peacebuilders to our workshop… had not happened. The workshop was to begin in four days, and folks did not have plane tickets, itineraries, nor lodging arrangements figured out. And so - we worked. We were up at 6 in the morning, at the cafe at 9, worked through the day until the cafe closed, then went to other bars or restaurants where we could hop on the wifi. Yes, this was quite stressful, and we had some bumps in the road trying to pull together all the moving pieces. And also, I was having the time of my life.
Kesh Kesh Restaurant, author’s personal collection.
We got our participants safely to Diani Beach for the Co-Creation Workshop through sheer grit and perhaps divine intervention. On Day 1 of the conference, I will admit, I was nervous! Here are 40 peacebuilders from around the world (mainly in the Horn of Africa) who lived and breathed conflict zones. I was rubbing shoulders with participants nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, who led national-level reconciliation commissions, and who had saved the lives of hundreds, perhaps thousands of civilians. And here I was, with his little notebook and tropical shirt, trying not to fanboy too hard over my newfound colleagues and friends.
Over the next three days, we talked, danced, sang, debated, cried, and healed. The central task for all of us was to figure out how individual mental health promotion can and should fit into collective peacebuilding and reconciliation frameworks—using what was happening in the Horn of Africa as a case study. My contribution was through the mental health, evidence-based scholarship I had been collecting and analyzing since I was 18. Other participants were therapists, social workers, researchers, governmental officials, and intelligence officers—a motley crew. This configuration of participants, I think, was a key predictor of our success; and I would say without missing a beat that the Co-Creation Workshop was a roaring success. What do I mean by this? Well, most academic conferences boast the same “featured players” every year, giving their talks on their research projects to other academics who then publish their journal articles and books and… And what? These are primarily rooms full of PhDs who had been professors for most of their post-grad lives. Of course, some of the ‘regular’ conference attendees are fabulous people. They may have been practitioners or are deeply connected to practice. The ‘good ones’ ensure their research makes it to the general public and doesn’t stay sequestered in the ivory tower. Our Workshop, in short, did not have that problem. Participants were deeply, personally, and profoundly connected to the mental health dynamics within their communities. They had a vested interest in these outcomes, and their families and communities had no shield against the weight of violence. For some participants, figuring out the mental health question was about life, contentment, death, and suffering.
An outdoor discussion sessions with Co-Creation Workshop Participants, author’s personal collection.
How can peacebuilders bring greater attention to mental health during their work? How can large-scale peacebuilding institutions, like the United Nations and other international governing bodies, better integrate cutting-edge mental health practices into inclusive peace processes, international development, and humanitarian aid? What role does mental health promotion play in keeping communities happy, healthy, safe, and sustainable? These questions haunted our discussions, and I feel highly energized to see how our topics can make their way into scholarly research, policy decisions, and the peacebuilding ethos.
There are moments in many of our lives where we lie at the true core of innovation. Companies like Apple, Google, and Amazon try to understand what innovation is, how to bottle it up, and use the formula to shape products and larger markets. “Innovation” can often feel like a buzzword. Then you walk into rooms like the one we were in throughout the Co-Creation Workshop, and you can feel innovation sitting there with you. I felt then, just as I feel now, that the people brought together in Kenya acted as a symbiotic whole trying to move the needle on terraforming the peacebuilding field. The new landscape we co-imagined was one where peacebuilders were cared for. Where social healing was centered in all discussions of reducing, managing, and preventing violent conflict. For three days, we were at the cutting edge of the field.
Now, a few months later, I feel a tremendous sense of gratitude for participating in those conversations and for having had a fieldwork opportunity that will profoundly shape my doctoral dissertation and Ph.D. experience writ large. I end this reflection with a brief word of advice: Chase the experiences that make you uncomfortable. Get into rooms where you feel humbled and in awe of the other people's knowledge, skills, abilities, and histories. With a little bit of luck and a lotta bit of resilience, your gifts and commitments will bring you into the space of innovation. While you’re there, take it all in. Breathe deeply, roll up your sleeves, and get to work.
Diani Beach at night, author’s personal collection.