Think positive, save a life”? Resilience and mental health interventions as political abandonment in a Ugandan refugee settlement

This article investigates the entanglements of resilience-based refugee policies and mental health interventions in the refugee settlement of Palabek, northern Uganda. I argue that both resilience refugee policies and mental health humanitarian interventions stem from a neoliberal logic which shifts responsibility onto individuals for their psychological and economic wellbeing. I show that there are direct links between chronic food insecurity and rates of mental illness among South Sudanese refugees in Palabek settlement. By individualising social suffering, mental health discourses and interventions mask the failures of humanitarian assistance in Uganda. As such, they justify and enable the political abandonment of refugees.