Baptiste Brossard, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Department of Sociology
Baptiste is a sociologist specialising in mental health, sociological theory, qualitative methods, micro and historical sociology.
He studied at the Ecole Normale Supérieure and School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences and obtained his first position at the Australian National University in 2016. In January 2022 he joined the Department of Sociology of the University of York.
email: baptiste.brossard@york.ac.uk
Our 60-second interview with Baptiste:
What you do in the field of mental health?
My work tries to show how a sociological perspective can be used to create an alternative understanding of mental health.
What do you find most rewarding and inspiring in this work?
Making people think more about the social roots of personal suffering and emotional distress, for example poverty, discrimination and ecological crisis.
What is the most challenging or complicated aspect of this work?
Making a link between the ecological crisis and poor mental health is challenging. How can we think about human mental health without caring about the wider ecosystem – the relationship between physical and social environments – that make life possible and worthwhile?
What impact do you hope your work is having - or can potentially have?
Help professionals and the general public to think about mental health differently and critically in light of the social and ecological environments that affect our emotional state. Rethinking mental health at the age of the Anthropocene.
Could you share with us one piece of advice that you follow for your own mental health?
Always try to put things in perspective by considering the bigger picture. Keep in mind things that matter or are bigger than individual events or situations.