Multispecies Entanglements and Rural Mental Wellbeing: An Ethnographic Situational Analysis

Rural mental health has become an increasingly prominent site of scholarly, governmental, and public concern, with growing investments in research, policy, and programming aimed at addressing rural populations' mental health needs. Yet, much of this burgeoning topic remains narrowly framed—steeped in deficit logics that pathologize rurality, privilege urban expertise, and marginalize the everyday knowledges and lifeways of rural people themselves. As a counselling psychologist-in-training with deep ties to rural life, I was both concerned and compelled by these framings, which often obscure the richness, complexity, and vitality of rural communities. This dissertation aims to unsettle such narrow depictions by moving beyond clinical formulations and engaging rural mental health as a situated, relational, and more-than-human phenomenon. Guided by situational analysis and supported by an ethnographic approach to data collection, I conducted go-along interviews and immersive fieldwork with eight rural participants in southern Alberta, exploring how they understand and practice mental wellbeing in their everyday lives. Through a composite of discursive interrogation, analytic mapping, and multispecies ethnographic storytelling, this project reimagines rural mental health not as a singular, clinical problem to be solved, but as a complex and plural field of relational and more-than-human entanglements. The resulting work offers both critique and possibility: it troubles dominant framings while championing alternative ways of knowing, caring, and responding to rural mental health that are grounded, pluralistic, and responsive to the textured, often unruly realities of rural life.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Education Graduate Program – Educational Psychology

Grantor

Werklund School of Education

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• Vegter, Vanessa

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Mudry, Tanya

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Adams, Jennifer
• Sametband, Ines

• Rural mental health
• counselling psychology
• situational analysis
• discourse
• human-animal relationships
• multispecies ethnography
• posthumanism

Statement dc:rights

• Unless otherwise indicated, this material is protected by copyright and has been made available with authorization from the copyright owner. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.

Language dc:language.iso

en

DOI

https://dx.doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/50271

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:ucalgary.scholaris.ca:1880/122678