Bhargavi Davar

Bhargavi V Davar, PhD, is a childhood survivor of the Indian mental asylums. She identifies as a person with a psychosocial disability having endured long-term trauma from those experiences. She completed her PhD on the ethical and epistemological foundations of the mental and behavioural sciences and the possibility of human freedom within those disciplines. Her work has been on gender, culture and disability studies, and the basis for the modern mental health policy frames in Asia. She has several published works, including (co-author), Psychoanalysis as a Human Science (Sage 1995), Mental health of Indian women (Sage 1999), (ed.) Mental health from a gender perspective (Sage 2001), Gendering mental health: Knowledges, identities, institutions (OUP 2015). She is Director of the Bapu Trust for Research on Mind & Discourse, Pune; and Convenor for an Asia Pacific advocacy platform called ‘Transforming Communities for Inclusion, Asia’ (TCI Asia Pacific). Her work through these organisations is to advocate for the full realization of all human rights for persons with psychosocial disabilities, especially the right to live in the community.