Merrick Pilling
Dr. Merrick Pilling is an assistant professor in the School of Disability Studies. He is the author of Queer and Trans Madness: Struggles for Social Justice (external link) and co-editor of Interrogating Psychiatric Narratives of Madness: Documented Lives (external link) . Dr. Pilling is an interdisciplinary scholar whose work demonstrates that an analysis of the mutually constitutive nature of mad, trans, and queer liberation is crucial to Disability Studies and Mad Studies as well as to Trans Studies and Sexuality Studies.
Dr. Pilling employs an intersectional, anti-racist lens that emphasizes the importance of lived experience, relevance to the communities being researched and making changes to the systems that create marginalization. Dr. Pilling often collaborates with community organizations to ensure the relevance of his research beyond the scholarly literature and to bridge the gaps between academic and community work.
In addition to his post-secondary teaching, Dr. Pilling has developed and delivered social justice-based curriculum for adult learners with direct service backgrounds in health care and social services on the following topics: social justice praxis in clinical chart documentation; intersectional, anti-oppressive approaches to delivering mental health services; trauma-informed care for 2SLGBTQ+ people who have experienced violence; and structural competence with trans and non-binary service users.
Dr. Pilling’s pedagogical approach includes co-creating an accessible, power-sharing environment where instructors and students learn from one another. He believes it is important to make complex theoretical concepts understandable through connections to everyday life and experience. In post-secondary classes and community-based workshops, he pays special attention to building a sense of community and connection.
Teaching interests:
- Mad Studies and Disability Justice
- 2SLGBTQIA+ lived experience and disability
- Research methodologies
- Trans Studies; Gender Studies; social justice & anti-racism
- Popular culture & representation
- Community-building & social movements
Research interests:
- Non-carceral responses to distress, suicidality, and crisis
- Resisting coercion and carcerality in mental health care and social services
- Intersectional Mad Studies approaches to student wellbeing and mental health
- Trans and queer crip lived experiences of social services and health care
- Institutional violence; gender-based violence; violence against trans and non-binary people
- Disability and long COVID among marginalized groups
- Qualitative methods and community engagement
Research projects:
Social Justice Praxis and Clinical Chart Documentation in Mental Health Care
Year: 2023-24
Role: Principal Investigator
Funded by: SSHRC Connection Grant
Exploring the social service experiences and needs of LGBTQ newcomers, immigrants, and refugees in Windsor-Essex
Year: 2022-23
Role: Principal Investigator
Funded by: SSHRC Partnership Engage Grant
Community service learning: High impact practices in Women’s and Gender Studies
Year: 2022-23
Role: Principal Investigator
Funded by: Co-operative Education and Work-Integrated Learning Canada
Street health and social services in the age of COVID-19: Mapping the impact of the pandemic on street-involved services and supports in Windsor, Ontario
Year: 2022-2024
Role: Co-investigator (Principal Investigator: J. Voronka)
Funded by: SSHRC Insight Grant
Mapping the gaps in graduate student/faculty mental health praxis in Ontario
Year: 2022-24
Role: Co-investigator (Principal Investigator: L. Ross)
Funded by: SSHRC Insight Development Grant
Peer-reviewed books:
- Pilling, M. (2022). Queer and Trans Madness: Struggles for Social Justice Queer and Trans Madness: Struggles for Social Justice (external link) . Palgrave MacMillan.
- Daley, A., & Pilling, M. (2021). Interrogating Psychiatric Narratives of Madness: Documented Lives (external link) . Palgrave MacMillan.
Peer-reviewed articles and book chapters (selected):
- Pilling, M. (Forthcoming). Toward Mad Trans Liberation: The Necessity of a Mad-Queer-Trans Lens. In B. LeFrancois, I. Abdillahi, G. Reaume, & R. Menzies. Mad Matters: A Critical Reader in Canadian Mad Studies (Second Edition). Canadian Scholars Press.
- Ross, L.E., Pilling, M., Pitt, K. A., Voronka, J. (Forthcoming). Even with the best of intentions: An accounting of failures in a participatory research project. In C. Carter, & C. Jones (Eds.), Contemporary Vulnerabilities, Plans Unraveled: Reflections on Social Justice Methodologies. University of Alberta Press.
- Tam, M. W., Pilling, M., MacKay, J. M., Gos, G., Keating, L., & Ross, L.E. (2022). Development and Implementation of a 2SLGBTQ+ Competent Trauma-Informed Care Intervention (external link) . Journal of Gay and Lesbian Mental Health.
- Pilling, M. (2021). Sexual violence and psychosis: Intersections of rape culture, sanism, and anti-Black sanism in psychiatric inpatient chart documentation (external link) . In A. Daley, & M. D. Pilling (Eds.), Interrogating Psychiatric Narratives of Madness: Documented Lives. Palgrave Macmillan, 155-186.
- MacKinnon, K.R., Guta, A., Voronka, J., Pilling, M., Williams, C.C., Strike, C., & Ross, L.E. (2021). The political economy of peer research: Mapping the possibilities and precarities of paying people for lived experience (external link) . British Journal of Social Work, 51(3), 888-906.
- Pilling, M. (2019). Changing directions or staying the course? Gender, sexuality, and recovery in Canada’s mental health strategy. In A. Daley, L. Costa, & P. Beresford (Eds.), Madness, Violence, and Power: A Critical Collection (external link) . University of Toronto Press, 97-114.
- Pilling, M., Daley, A., Gibson M.F., Ross, L.E., & Zaheer, J. (2018). Assessing ‘insight’, determining agency and autonomy: Implicating social identities. In J. Kilty & E. Dej (Eds.), Containing Madness: Gender and ‘Psy’ in Institutional Contexts (external link) . Palgrave MacMillan, 191-214.
- Pilling, M., Howison, M., Bellamy, C., Davidson, L., Frederick, T., Ross, L., McKenzie, K., & Kidd, S. (2017). Fragmented Inclusion: Community Participation and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, and Queer People with Diagnoses of Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorde (external link) r (external link) . American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 87(5), 606-613.
- Pilling, M. (2013). Invisible identity in the workplace: Intersectional madness and processes of disclosure at work (external link) . Disability Studies Quarterly, 33(1).
Member of the Board of Directors, Pozitive Pathways, Windsor, Ont.