Material deprivation affects mental health recovery assemblages: A micropolitical inquiry into sociomaterial inequalities

Abstract

This article examines the sociomaterial inequalities encountered by young adults experiencing distress at the micro level with a focus on how various forms of material deprivation become embedded within recovery assemblages. Drawing on the Deleuzian–Guattarian new materialist approach, we define assemblages as human and nonhuman networks that connect material and immaterial elements together. In these assemblages, matter is considered to have ‘agentic’ capacity, and thus, agency is attributed, in addition to human actors, to nonhuman elements. By using interview data, our analysis identifies three distinct recovery assemblages arising from different forms of material deprivation in the recovery processes of young adults. The first assemblage relates to a lack of safe recovery environments, the second involves insufficient financial resources, and the third reflects the loss of bodily strength and diminished capacity for everyday functioning. Assemblages marked by material deprivation can become relatively permanent and territorialized, limiting the agency of young adults experiencing distress. However, these assemblages are also subject to destabilization and deterritorialization through micropolitical actions. We demonstrate how young adults and their family members can disrupt these assemblages and influence material deprivation. According to the new materialist perspective, small acts can ignite significant change, offering the potential to challenge sociomaterial inequalities on a broader scale.

Keywords

assemblages material deprivation mental health micropolitics new materialism

Introduction

This article contributes to the growing body of new materialist research examining the relationship between sociomaterial inequalities and health disparities at the micro level (Fox, 2024; Fox and Alldred, 2022; Fox and Powell, 2021a). This perspective considers material and health inequalities to be fluid and to accumulate from ‘thousands of small disadvantages’ (Fox and Powell, 2021b). Studying these flows and accumulations in everyday interactions and how people with health problems encounter them adds to well-established research on institutional mechanisms and hierarchical structures related to material and health inequalities. Previous new materialist studies have provided detailed insights into how material elements—such as objects, environments, and human bodies (Duff, 2012, 2016; Kolehmainen, 2019; Marks, 2021)—significantly impact mental health recovery processes.

Building on this foundation, our study directs attention to the material deprivation in these processes and how it is encountered at the micro level. New material research typically focuses on phenomena that exist in a concrete formula (Scott, 2022); our focus extends the new material lens to study something that has significance by not being present. This work also discusses the blurred boundaries between what is present and what is absent, as in people’s lived realities, material deprivation is revealed through the concrete and material effects of something that is not tangible in itself. Therefore, our study identifies material deprivation through the effects and connections related to the absence of materials on mental health recovery.

For our study, we interviewed 21 Finnish young adults who spoke about mental health challenges and, to some extent, neurodivergent traits. All of the young adults we interviewed shared their opinion that different forms of material deprivation played a significant role in their recovery process (see Graby, 2015). Guided by critical mental health research, we understand that they spoke about recovery in terms of experiencing significant distress in response to environmental conditions such as economic inequality and deprivation (Pilgrim and McCranie, 2013).

To analyze mental health recovery in the midst of distress with a focus on material deprivation and the absence of materials, we employed new materialist assemblage thinking. According to Deleuze and Guattari (1987 [1980]), assemblages are dynamic networks of material and immaterial, human and nonhuman elements that influence and interact with each other. The assemblage perspective guided our examination of mental distress as not an inherent characteristic of the individual (Duff, 2016: 63–64). Instead, distress is understood to emerge through relations among multiple elements within assemblages. Distress is therefore dynamic and continually open to change.

In assemblage, material and immaterial, human and nonhuman elements, can possess ‘agentic’ capacity—a capacity to affect and be affected. In this article, the assemblage perspective highlights the significant ‘agentic’ capacity and effects of material deprivation: how a lack of financial resources creates loneliness and restricts the life of people experiencing distress; how they struggle to access diminishing care resources and safe recovery environments; and how deficits in bodily strength limit people’s ability to act. The ‘agentic’ capacity of an intentional human actor is often overshadowed by that of deprivation. As such, intentionality alone is not a sufficient measure of agency.

Although humans are not the only ones with ‘agentic’ capacity, they can still shape assemblages and redirect flows in which inequality tends to accumulate. To explore this dynamic, we employed the concepts of territorialization and deterritorialization. Assemblages and the inequalities within them can be stabilized by territorializing entities with boundaries (DeLanda, 2006: 12); they can also be deterritorialized if established order and existing inequalities become disrupted (Fox and Alldred, 2015). For example, desperate efforts to access care may shift to micropolitical deterritorializing acts via their effects even if they do not involve planning. ‘Agentic’ capacity in this sense exists even in unexpected places.

Micropolitical deterritorializing as acts is especially valuable when policy-level changes remain insufficient. For example, in Finland, where this research was conducted, care resources are insufficient and subject to continuous cuts (Alanko, 2017; Kaittila et al., 2025), while at the same time the number of service users with mental health or neurodivergent diagnoses has increased (Forsell, 2022). Additionally, the government plans to cut income transfers for those in rehabilitation (Finnish Government, 2023). The new materialist perspective on recovery helps in understanding the consequences of these policies and provides micropolitical agency for challenging these developments.

In this article, we begin by depicting previous new materialist research on how material elements affect recovery and introduce assemblage thinking. Next, we discuss the context of this study in terms of the Finnish welfare state and then outline the interview participants, the interview methods, and the data analysis. In the results section, we examine different forms of material deprivation, their ‘agential’ capacity, and the ways in which people challenge these conditions micropolitically. We conclude by discussing the practical implications of our findings and their relevance for future research.

New materialist approach to recovery

Previous new materialist research has produced a nuanced empirical understanding of the multitude of material elements that affect recovery, with a focus on environments, objects, and human bodies. From a new materialist perspective, environments such as psychiatric hospitals can be important settings for recovery (Brown and Reavey, 2019). However, due to downsizes, outpatient care settings such as consulting rooms and the offices of mental health professionals have become important environments for treatment and support (Craciun, 2019; Duff, 2012, 2016). Moreover, the environments that are essential for recovery extend beyond where people receive treatment. Homes (Duff, 2012, 2016; Tucker, 2010) and supported housing units (Duff and Hill, 2022; Friesinger et al., 2020), where people live, in addition to places where people spend time together, such as restaurants, cafés, parks, and beaches, support recovery by providing a safe and supportive atmosphere (Duff, 2016; Price-Robertson and Duff, 2019).

Research shows that various objects play a role in recovery assemblages across different spaces. Phones and calendars help mental health professionals coordinate their work (Larsen et al., 2020). In therapy settings, benches and armchairs foster a cozy, inclusive atmosphere (Kolehmainen, 2019; Larsen et al., 2020), whereas repaired bicycles in workshops can feel like therapists (Marks, 2021). Objects owned by individuals experiencing distress also aid recovery. At home, items such as teacups, plants, and books create coziness (Duff, 2012, 2016), and personal furniture in housing units fosters a home-like environment (Duff and Hill, 2022). Additionally, purchasing new items can have a therapeutic effect (Duff, 2012).

New materialist research has noted that through the use of different objects, human bodies also become a material part of recovery processes. For example, repairing (Marks, 2021) or riding a bicycle (Fullagar, 2020) can help people escape a mentally difficult situation. In addition to cycling, other forms of bodily exercise can enhance mental well-being. Learning how to perform a handstand can help individuals cope with fear and anxiety (Duff, 2012), and positive feelings can arise from participating in yoga or dancing (Kolehmainen, 2019; Smith, 2016).

Research has shown that individuals experiencing distress can engage in micropolitical actions to disrupt the established order of material elements. For example, children with autism spectrum diagnoses can spontaneously break the choreography with their bodily movements during a dance class (Smith, 2016). Moreover, people who are recovering from mental health problems might use spaces in unconventional ways, such as by practising mindfulness in urban areas or by playing chess in cafés without making many purchases (Duff, 2016). They may also personalize meeting spaces to feel more homely (Larsen and Topor, 2017) or offer coffee to mental health professionals, reversing typical roles (Barlott et al., 2020).

Mental health professionals can also micropolitically challenge prevailing rules and order. In supported housing, staff rooms often exclude residents, but professionals can disrupt this phenomenon by sharing meals in common areas with residents (Friesinger et al., 2020). They can also further influence the atmosphere through decor adjustments or by being friendly and approachable (Johansson and Holmes, 2024). Professionals may also meet clients in neutral spaces such as cafés (Barlott et al., 2020; Duff, 2016; Friesinger et al., 2020) and challenge the expectation of emotional neutrality by expressing feelings through bodily gestures such as laughing or crying (Craciun, 2019).

Although new materialist research has rarely focused on material deprivation, some studies have nonetheless suggested that deprivation affects mental health at the micro level. For example, Price-Robertson and Duff (2019) highlighted how young people experience distress when they move away from a safe home environment.

In this article, we make material deprivation the primary focus of our new materialist examination. From this perspective, material deprivation manifests concretely through its effects on everyday life. Absent material elements influence, push back and resist, and affect the social world; in other words, they have ‘agentic’ capacity (Meyer, 2012). The boundaries between presence and absence are not always clear-cut in everyday life, and absence can take the form of so-called ‘absent-presences’ through the material effects it produces (Barad, 2014; Croissant, 2014; Law and Singleton, 2005; Meyer, 2012).

Assemblage perspective on recovery

The studies described above were inspired by various new materialist approaches, and this article adopts an assemblage approach from new materialist frameworks to examine the everyday experiences related to material deprivation. The analytical concept of assemblage developed by Deleuze and Guattari (1987 [1980]) focuses on collections and connections of material and immaterial as well as human and nonhuman elements that affect each other. These elements have ‘agentic’ capacity because they affect other elements (Alldred and Fox, 2017). According to this view, human agency is one element among others that produces the social world.

Although assemblages tend to become relatively permanent and territorialized, they do not stiffen into rigid structures. Through singular micropolitical actions, they can be fragmented or deterritorialized whereby the parts settle into a new position (Fox and Alldred, 2015).

According to Deleuze and Guattari (1987 [1980]), treating mental health requires deterritorializing assemblages and enabling flow and new relationships. Territorialized practices in, for example, psychoanalysis (the Oedipal model and a fixation on family structure) or psychiatry (medication or hospitalization) hinder the open exploration necessary for recovery.

Material deprivation and distress in the Finnish welfare state context

The assemblages of this study emerge in a Finnish policy context. Although the welfare state in Finland moderates sociomaterial inequalities, young adults who are in the process of recovering from mental health issues encounter a variety of forms of material deprivation. Extensive research has focused on the significant reduction in resources allocated to mental health care in inpatient settings and psychiatric hospitals following the economic downturn of the early 1990s (Alanko, 2017), which is the case even though Finland has the highest estimated incidence of mental disorders in the EU, with nearly one in five Finns having mental health problems (OECD/EU, 2018).

Young adults in Finland also experience a lack of personal financial resources. This phenomenon is partially a result of them moving out on their own in early adulthood (Eurostat, 2022). Many find increased financial responsibility stressful, contributing to distress in young adulthood (Torikka et al., 2014).

Young adults with mental health challenges and neurodivergent traits also face material deprivation due to limited employment opportunities (Aromaa et al., 2011). For those who are employed, the labor market is demanding because there is a powerful norm that valorizes full-time employment, and intermediate labor markets are lacking. Furthermore, in recent years, mental and behavioral disorders (ICD-10 F01–F99) have become the leading cause of disability pensions in Finland (Finnish Centre for Pensions, 2020).

Participants in this study received the Rehabilitation Allowance for Young Persons (RAYP), which is a conditional cash transfer from Kela (the Social Insurance Institution of Finland) for young people whose ability to work or study or whose opportunities to choose a profession have been impaired due to illness or disability and who require special support measures in terms of their ability to participate in studies or other types of employment-promoting rehabilitation. Recipients participate in vocational rehabilitation at vocational or upper secondary schools and can use the allowance according to their personal needs. Kela monitors only whether their ongoing studies are progressing realistically. In this sense, the RAYP offers more flexibility than other social security benefits for young people in Finland do. Publicly funded student grants require students to earn a certain number of credits each year, while social assistance involves strict monthly needs assessments. However, RAYP recipients often face financial difficulties, especially if they live alone (Salminen, 2019). Furthermore, if not employed when the allowance ends, their income decreases, as other benefits are smaller than those of the RAYP (e.g. study grants, unemployment benefits, and basic social assistance; Hiilamo et al., 2017). A large proportion of RAYP recipients with mental health and behavioral disorders transition to disability pensions after the allowance period (Koskenvuo et al., 2011).

Methods

Participants

All participants in the study were receiving or had received the RAYP on the basis of a diagnosis of mental or behavioral disorders. In the spring of 2018, Kela delivered an invitation to individuals whose rehabilitation money had ended in 2015 (n = 219) and those who received the RAYP in 2016 (n = 650) to participate in the research. The recipients lived in the region of Pirkanmaa during the RAYP period. Four young adults belonged to both sample groups, and the addresses of eight young adults were not known. The invitation asked the young adults to contact the researchers. Of the 857 young adults invited, 26 contacted us, and we interviewed 21 of them. Eight of the interviewees were still receiving the RAYP, and 13 had completed the program.

To be eligible to receive the RAYP, the participants either had attended or were attending upper secondary school (7), a vocational or special vocational school (11) or a university of applied science (1), while two young adults had participated in vocational training. At the time of the interviews, the 13 young adults who had completed their RAYP period were at work (2), in an internship (1), unemployed (3) or retired (1). Two participants had begun attending a new school after their RAYP had ended, and one participant was at his old school and had not yet graduated, although his RAYP had ended. Two people were working at or had applied for summer jobs before starting at a new school in the fall, and one was beginning his national service.

Data collection

We collected data through qualitative interviews (Fox and Alldred, 2015), which involved detailed discussions about the mental health recovery process during and after the RAYP period. The interviews included discussions of ‘Everyday life, housing and social relations’; ‘Recovery and services’; and ‘Employment and future plans’. These general sections included more concrete and detailed topics and questions related to everyday activities and practices. The topics and questions were printed on paper that was kept on the table so that the participants could search for unaddressed topics and guide the course of the interview.

Due to the sensitivity of the research, the participants were allowed to determine the degree to which they shared personal matters. For example, their diagnoses were not requested at any point, and the participants were free not to disclose them. At the end of each interview, the participants were given an opportunity to unpack any feelings and thoughts that emerged. The interviews lasted an average of 1 hour and 50 minutes, and the recordings were transcribed into text and transferred to the Atlas.ti program for analysis.

Data analysis

In the analysis, we focused on material deprivation in the recovery processes of young adults experiencing distress. The study of material deprivation is epistemologically challenging (Scott, 2022: 202), as it attempts to evaluate something that does not concretely exist. However, as Croissant (2014) argued, research on these kinds of matters can focus on the effects of material deprivation, which become observable when people make sense of their lives and living conditions by talking about them with others. In this way, rather than focusing on the elements that are absent, qualitative research can focus on how individuals experience absence in everyday life (Scott, 2022: 202).

In particular, the assemblage perspective adopted in this article enabled us to examine how material deprivation manifests in tangible ways in people’s everyday lives (see Croissant, 2014: 19). Thus, when analyzing the qualitative interviews, we concentrated on the assemblages within which participants were situated and where deprivation produces complex effects (Fox and Alldred, 2015: 409). This approach allowed us to examine the powerful effects of deprivation and its ‘agentic’ capacity, which individuals have difficulty overcoming.

To empirically apply assemblage thinking as an analytical framework, we utilized the methodology developed by Fox and Alldred (2015). According to this approach, the analysis of assemblages proceeds by a) identifying assemblages and their constituent elements, b) examining the effects and interactions of these elements, and, finally, exploring the possibilities for c) the stabilization and d) alteration and influence of these assemblages. Our analysis proceeded in accordance with this framework as follows:

Constituting assemblages: We used the Atlas.ti program to facilitate systematic processing of the entire interview data and focused on the types of material deprivation described by individuals experiencing distress. When processing the data, we asked the following questions: What kinds of objects are individuals lacking? What kinds of environments are they excluded from? What kinds of activities are they unable to engage in?

On the basis of these systematic observations, we identified three main mental health recovery assemblages: a lack of safe recovery environments, insufficient financial resources, and insufficient bodily strength. Material deprivation is a key component of all of them. After identifying the main assemblages, we identified their constituent elements and their connections to material deprivation.

Effecting assemblage: Here, we asked what kinds of effects material deprivation has and interpreted what kind of ‘agentic’ capacity it holds. We found that it strongly limits people’s agency by either restricting their actions or forcing them to act. The effects of deprivation—and thus deprivation itself—are unmistakably present in assemblages.

Stabilizing assemblages: We focused on the territorialization of assemblages and asked how they become established as entities with defined boundaries (DeLanda, 2006: 12). We found that deprivation had become a stable part of the lives of people experiencing distress, accumulating over time and manifesting in multiple forms. This material deprivation was sustained by various policies and practices.

Altering and influencing assemblages: In the final stage of our inquiry, we examined the micropolitical actions of individuals who contest the established order and participate in the deterritorialization of assemblages. These actions may appear impossible, desperate, or overly singular (Fox and Alldred, 2015). We found that the agency required for deterritorialization does not need to be strategic, planned, or purposeful and that therefore, nonhuman elements such as policies can also possess this kind of ‘agentic’ capacity and deterritorializing effects. Both human and nonhuman elements can share distributed agency and together produce micropolitical effects (Price-Robertson and Duff, 2019).

Ethical considerations

Ethical approval was provided by Kela’s Research Ethics Committee (approval no. 14/1/500/2016). The participants signed an informed consent form and were provided the option to withdraw from the study at any time.

Findings

The lack of safe recovery environments

Different environments, such as hospitals, outpatient care settings and homes, are typical parts of recovery assemblages (Brown and Reavey, 2019; Duff, 2012, 2016). The young adults who participated in this study described the lack of recovery environments as a key feature of the recovery assemblage. According to these participants, the shortage of resources in health care limited access to and stays in safe environments such as hospitals.

I had that feeling of being safe in the ward. They suddenly told me after a few days that I was fit to go home, although I had only just realized that I was in the hospital and that, “Hey, I am safe here.” And right away, they say that you are going home, and then you are like, “No, it is not going to work out.” It is not right if a person leaving there is already thinking that they will kill themselves. That is not any kind of goal. The shortage of resources may be the worst thing in the field of mental health. (former recipient, on disability pension, age 22).

Young adults criticized the fact that, due to the lack of treatment resources, hospitals were difficult to access. Instead of hospitals, they lived at home, and they ended up in outpatient care in consulting rooms for therapy and various meeting places. These young adults explained that these environments are not supportive enough of people in severe distress, such as psychosis.

In a recovery assemblage related to hospital environments, both the people experiencing distress and the professionals who care for them have limited influence. Patients cannot affect places of recovery, as professionals make decisions on treatment. The young adults described how doctors and nurses seem to limit hospital admissions on the basis of even the smallest visible signs of well-being. For example, neat eyebrows can give professionals a reason to deny access to treatment and hospitals:

In the nurse’s comment in the medical case summary, which is written every time someone visits, about why they visited, there is a mention: "Well, the patient has pretty well-groomed eyebrows considering that she feels depleted of energy [because of depression].” What. . . [chuckles] what the hell? Who would comment like that? . . . They think that the patients are healthy because they look neat. Don’t you know that not looking neat can cause extra anxiety for some? Can you say that this person is doing well if their eyebrows are neat? (former recipient, at a new school, age 19)

Elements in the assemblage flow in unpredictable ways and unexpected entities, such as eyebrows, can have significant effects on defining treatment locations and limiting hospitalization. An outwardly physically tidy appearance, such as neat eyebrows, make-up or clothes, can have ‘agentic’ capacity, as these signs determine how professionals interpret the needs of their patients. These findings also show that, in contrast to what professionals believe, depression does not always limit human agency but can motivate people to take care of their body and appearance.

In these recovery assemblages, professionals have limited opportunities to hear patients’ wishes. Since the 1990s, welfare state cuts have territorialized a relatively persistent lack of mental health care resources, visibly shaping individuals’ lives.

Although the shortage of inpatient care appears entrenched, deterritorialization of recovery assemblages remains possible. The young adults described situations in which their parents challenged existing guidelines on how the hospitalization process is organized. They contacted professionals, took their children directly to hospitals and strongly insisted that they should be admitted. However, parents’ agency is distributed and shared with matter, which limits actions. They may themselves be depressed and have limited bodily strength to act, and young adults may be reluctant to be ‘dragged’ to the hospital.

I was so paralyzed that my mother was afraid that I would kill myself, so she took me in her arms and partly carried me. I was already such a big guy at the time that it was difficult for her. She took me to the car and then called [psychiatric hospital]. [. . .]. I wouldn’t have gone to [psychiatric hospital] if my mother hadn’t taken me there. (recipient, in upper secondary school, age 22)

Additionally, young adults experiencing distress take political action. In their interviews, their strong criticism of the shortage of mental health resources was an example of that kind of agency. More extreme examples include desperate acts to obtain help. These micropolitical actions seek, and sometimes succeed, in deterritorializing assemblages:

There are people who go to extremes to get help. They might drive while drunk and try to hurt others just so that they can get help. I know that those are not bad people, but they just cannot take it anymore. It’s like having a knife to your throat, but you can’t wait for [hospitalization] to happen anymore. (former recipient, on disability pension, age 22)

The young adult continued her account by describing how her own dangerous actions altered her situation. In her case, these actions resulted in an accident and injury, meaning that the effects of material deprivation became strikingly apparent. Nevertheless, they also led to her receiving appropriate care and treatment for her mental health issues. Despite the real dangers and harms involved, such actions can be understood as micropolitical forms of resistance to the prevailing order (Alldred and Fox, 2017). Acts such as demanding care for one’s child or engaging in personally risky behavior often emerge from a place of desperation, when parents and young adults see no other viable means to influence or change their circumstances. These actions impact recovery assemblages, setting various elements into motion and contributing to the formation of new kinds of assemblages.

The lack of financial resources

In terms of the presence of money and the items purchased with it (Duff, 2016; Duff and Hill, 2022), the lack of these resources affects the recovery assemblage. An absence of money especially affects young adults who live independently and pay for housing or who have ceased receiving the RAYP.

In a recovery assemblage, a lack of financial resources is linked to various objects that young adults have difficulty buying and various environments they have difficulty accessing. A lack of money is connected to a lack of personal hobby equipment, such as make-up or games, and hinders exercising at affordable but still somewhat costly public indoor swimming pools. It also prevents young adults from buying enjoyable and healthy food. Moreover, they find it difficult to go to restaurants or movie theaters because the costs are too high in relation to the money available to them. Therefore, a lack of financial resources has an ‘agential’ effect on recovery assemblages and limits the agency of young adults:

The nurse tells me that it is not normal that a young person only sits at home and that a normal person would go out sometimes, but it has been determined by this income. (former recipient, at a new school, age 19)

Money plays a powerful role in shaping what is possible in the lives of young adults (Van Aerschot et al., 2016), and a lack of financial resources confines the recovery assemblage within the home. Individuals who lack money feel forced to stay home and cannot participate freely in social activities or establish relationships, causing feelings of loneliness that undermine their mental well-being.

The participants in this study had limited opportunities to affect their financial situation. They attempted to earn money by working, but because they lacked the energy to work, they felt forced to obtain a job. For example, a participant who needed to work as a cleaner did not feel that she had agency over her own life but that the deprivation related to financial resources determined what she had to do:

The biggest source of stress is my financial situation . . . I truly try very hard. I try to finish my studies, and I go to work; I clean at home and go to my relatives’ houses to clean in exchange for money. (recipient, in upper secondary school, age 19)

This example illustrates how a lack of financial resources causes the elements in the assemblage to flow, as the person experiencing distress must move between places and take on multiple tasks. Moreover, the lack of financial resources itself remains a relatively stable part of the assemblage. Deprivation has become territorialized as part of the assemblage due to the idea that it motivates people to act. However, for many, a lack of financial resources instead generates distress and limits the capacity to act.

However, especially for those who still live with their parents and do not pay for their housing or many other living costs, the rehabilitation allowance deterritorializes the recovery assemblage. The RAYP is more significant than other income transfers available to young adults (Hiilamo et al., 2017), and Kela does not provide strict conditions or monitor how it is used. It is ‘the young people’s own money’. Furthermore, they do not have to earn a certain number of study credits to receive it. However, they may spend the money ‘incorrectly’, such as through impulse buying. The element that allows the use of the RAYP ‘incorrectly’ for personal purposes also allows young adults to learn how to use money. Thus, through a shared distributed agency, the RAYP helps young adults become economic actors.

When young adults no longer receive the RAYP, they move to forms of financial support that emphasize financial scarcity and specific financial needs:

Currently [after the end of the RAYP period], every time I go to see a mental health nurse, in the end about half of my problems are just stress about money. (former recipient, at a new school, age 19)

In these situations, young adults can go and talk to mental health professionals but have limited influence on the support they receive. Instead, the recovery assemblage reterritorializes the deprivation of financial resources and related distress returns. Thus, the old order in the assemblage is re-established, as the assumption is that the recovery period is over and that young adults no longer need special financial support.

Losing personal bodily strength

The third category of material deprivation in this study is the lack of personal body strength. Human bodies, as material entities, are part of recovery assemblages when, for example, they participate in movement and exercise (Duff, 2012; Fullagar, 2020). As identified in our analysis, human bodies without strength are also part of recovery assemblages and have ‘agentic’ capacity, despite neither acting nor moving. They resist the will of the young adults as their ‘owners’, such as in the case of depression, when young adults are not able to do what they want and what they are expected to do. People experiencing distress thus need to consider the limits of their bodies’ strength.

I’m exhausted from a normal school day. I’m really tired after that. I have to think about whether I can clean today, whether I can go to the store, whether I can do laundry, or whether I can take out the trash. (recipient, in vocational school, age 18)

For young adults, their inability to manage their bodies creates a challenge in terms of getting out of bed and leaving home. In this case, the recovery assemblage includes objects and environments that are present in their absence and actions that remain undone. Young adults may have difficulty taking showers and going to school or work due to mental health problems. They also have difficulty cleaning, cooking, and performing other types of activities that require bodily strength. The tasks that need to be performed thus flow into the assemblage and accumulate.

Other people, such as family members, friends, and colleagues, expect depressed people to be able to act. Young adults criticize the common idea that depressed people are lazy and that they should ‘pull themselves up by their bootstraps’ (the Finnish idiom is to ‘grab oneself by the neck’). This way of thinking territorializes the recovery assemblage, in which individuals are expected to act in ways beyond their capacity.

The participants resist these kinds of expectations and deterritorialize the recovery assemblage by, for example, educating their family members and friends about their experiences with mental health problems such as depression. One participant enacted a form of shared agency with research by informing colleagues that, according to recent findings, depression is rooted in brain chemistry and is therefore largely beyond individual control. Another participant regularly returned to her former school to share her experiences with students. In these moments, young adults experiencing distress emphasize that the everyday struggles associated with mental health problems or neurodivergent traits are not signs of laziness or lack of willpower, as is often assumed. Rather, they highlight that these challenges can be physically draining and make it difficult to concentrate or function effectively in everyday life.

Many people do not know the strangest symptoms of depression, which are also common.. . . That a person cannot brush their teeth, cannot take a shower, just cannot. It is not laziness; a person just does not have the energy. (former recipient, at a new school, age 19)

The participants also deterritorialized this recovery assemblage by challenging ideas of what counts as work. According to them, recovery itself requires considerable effort compared to working. While work may take 8 hours a day, recovery is an ongoing, around-the-clock process. Therefore, according to the young participants, recovery and rehabilitation should be valued as work:

I think it would be great if some day someone would be like, “Hey, it’s truly cool that you are rehabilitating yourself,” because usually people think it’s great that you have a full-time job. . . . If you can actually climb out of a dark hole, that is also respectable, and I think that it should be respected even more. (recipient, vocational school, age 23)

If recovery was understood as a physically demanding effort, as reflected in the metaphor of ‘climbing out of a dark hole’, the recovery assemblage would change radically. Rather than requiring individuals to exceed their limits to fulfill expectations, the assemblage could remain flexible and responsive to their capacities.

Discussion

This article contributes to the expanding field of new materialist research that explores the connection between sociomaterial inequalities and health disparities at the micro level (Fox, 2024; Fox and Alldred, 2022; Fox and Powell, 2021a, 2021b) and focuses on how sociomaterial inequalities manifest as various forms of material deprivation in the lives of individuals experiencing distress.

Through qualitative interviews, we identified three mental health recovery assemblages within which deprivation occurs and has effects such that individuals’ agency is limited. First, the lack of safe physical environments, especially in psychiatric hospitals, hinders recovery, as people who wish to be hospitalized have few opportunities to influence decisions related to admission. Second, people experiencing distress struggle with insufficient personal financial resources and, consequently, a lack of necessary goods and objects. This type of deprivation may force them to work and limit their ability to have hobbies and see friends outside the home. Third, people experiencing distress may suffer a deprivation of physical strength, which confines them to bed and makes everyday tasks, leaving home, and working difficult.

Since deprivation is part of the assemblages, it can also be shaped by intervening in those very assemblages. Individuals can influence these forms of deprivation by sharing agency with material elements and disrupting and deterritorializing established patterns. For example, parents may bypass normal treatment application processes to demand hospital admission, and the self-destructive and desperate acts of people experiencing distress can open access to necessary care. Additionally, the interviewees worked to shift the perspectives of others on mental health, viewing it not just as psychological but as something causing a lack of bodily strength. The RAYP policy, by offering ‘young people’s own money’, also deterritorializes traditional income transfer systems, challenging the idea of strict oversight.

A new materialist perspective opens up alternative ways of studying material deprivation and its connection to health at the microlevel, particularly in relation to the limits of existing structural approaches. Traditionally, macrolevel structural critiques have attributed health inequalities to factors such as low socioeconomic status or class (Link and Phelan, 1995), and microlevel observations have likewise often been interpreted through macrolevel frameworks. Goffman (2022 [1961]) provided an influential ethnographic account of material deprivation in psychiatric hospitals, interpreting it as a consequence of hospitals functioning as total institutions that erode personal identity through the removal of personal belongings. However, such structural critiques have not reliably produced lasting reforms and have sometimes had unintended negative effects. In Finland, Goffman’s ideas helped inspire deinstitutionalization and outpatient care in the name of patient autonomy, but during the 1990s recession this discourse was later used to legitimize hospital cutbacks and the neglect of those most in need (Alanko, 2017: 22, 53).

The assemblage approach can help shape and prevent such outcomes by shifting the focus from broad explanations related, for example, to socioeconomic status, class, or institutions, toward everyday experiences and the production of situated, local knowledge (Haraway, 1988). Local knowledge can be effective in terms of addressing diverse forms of deprivation, enabling interventions to target inequalities wherever they arise (Fox and Alldred, 2022). Local professionals can challenge material deprivation through micropolitical actions. They can tell service users about available benefits, push for access to treatment and hospital care, and even visit clients at home to help link them with health and employment services—even if these tasks go beyond their official duties (Friesinger et al., 2020). Moreover, professionals can support and motivate service users and their families to engage in micropolitical actions and strive to strengthen the impact of these actions.

While micropolitical interventions are vital, macrolevel policy changes are also necessary. However, even these broader shifts may originate from micropolitical actions. Assemblage thinking thus offers a perspective that helps us understand how systemic change takes root and how policies such as the RAYP can emerge. It also offers tools for understanding how the transformative potential of policies fades if previously established orders reterritorialize. For example, the current Finnish government’s plans to reduce the RAYP may drive the reterritorialization of material deprivation (Finnish Government, 2023). Moreover, concerns about RAYP misuse have led to calls for stricter monitoring (Yle, 2021). Reterritorialization is thus shifting toward a situation in which people experiencing distress are expected to cope with deprivation on their own.

Although deprivation limits agency and complicates recovery, a new materialist perspective reminds us that change and deterritorialization are always possible. Deprivation can also be a productive condition that creates space for transformation (Barad, 2014). Even from ‘nothing’, something unexpected and novel may emerge.

Limitations and future research

This study’s first limitation lies in the multifaceted nature of material deprivation. Beyond the lack of objects, environments, or physical strength, deprivation can take diverse forms. Therefore, future research could examine deprivation in varied contexts and with diverse data. For instance, the absence of physical closeness to other people (Duff, 2016) or the absence caused by the death of a loved one can deeply affect recovery (Meyer, 2012). Furthermore, invisible agents such as pathogens may also impact mental health (Lupton, 2022). Moreover, future research should acknowledge that it is sometimes unclear whether something is truly absent or present. For example, through acts of remembering, absent things can be experienced as present (Meyer, 2012).

Future new materialist research should also focus on the potential benefits of material deprivation, in contrast to this study, in which deprivation is framed as a negative phenomenon. For example, the absence of physical presence in teletherapy can enhance therapy and counseling practices (Kolehmainen, 2022).

New materialist thinking has been criticized for distributing power everywhere without providing tools to examine power differences (Choat, 2018). However, it can offer insights into power dynamics, inequalities, and health disparities at the micro level (Fox, 2024). Further empirical research is needed to illuminate these disparities by exploring power as a dynamic process in which matter and resources accumulate in some places but are scarce in others. In the future, the concepts of assemblage and deterritorialization could be valuable for research related to challenging sociomaterial inequalities (Barlott et al., 2020) and help identify situations in which people and policies can disrupt existing power relations.

Conclusion

The current situation in which people experiencing distress find themselves seems complicated and difficult to change, as material deprivation seems to be an inseparable part of their lives. However, assemblage thinking destabilizes the status quo and clarifies the active role that research and people experiencing distress themselves play. A better understanding of the practical effects of material deprivation will allow us to progress toward more abstract and elevated goals, such as structural equity and fair institutions.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We would like to express our gratitude to the young adults who shared their stories, making this paper possible. We also thank Dr. Marjo Kolehmainen for her insightful feedback and suggestions and the Tampere Centre for Societal Sustainability (TaSSu) for their valuable support. Their contributions greatly aided the preparation of this article.

ORCID iDs

Jarkko Salminen

Liisa Häikiö

Ethical considerations

This study was approved by Kela’s Research Ethics Committee (approval no. 14/1/500/2016) on February 13, 2017.

Consent to participate

Respondents gave written consent for review and signature before starting interviews.

Funding

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Social Insurance Institution of Finland (Kela) and The Finnish Cultural Foundation (Suomen Kulttuurirahasto) [grant number 50211606].

Declaration of conflicting interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Data availability statement

The datasets generated and analyzed during the current study are not publicly available due to the Kela’s policy to protect the privacy of the recipients of benefits.

Author biographies

Jarkko Salminen is a social policy researcher at Tampere University focusing on rehabilitation and employment prospects for young adults experiencing mental distress. His research examines the inclusion and agency of these young adults through the lenses of recognition theory, the capability approach, and new materialist research. By using a qualitative approach, he explores the microlevel opportunities they have to shape their own lives, engage with their communities, and influence society at large.

Liisa Häikiö, Professor of Social Policy, focuses on the relationships between everyday life, governance and policy in different welfare state contexts and global policy ideas in local and national policy processes. Her recent research has focused on sustainability transformations and the emergence of eco-social policies.

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