Luke Kernan

Luke Kernan holds a Ph.D. in anthropology. His transdisciplinary fieldwork and research are grounded in medical anthropology, critical psychology and psychiatry, Mad studies, and arts-based methodologies. His dissertation addresses questions around what it is like to experience psychosis from an insider’s perspective and how empathy and art inform those moments. Rather than seeing psychosis as a form of “dysfunction,” he found that it can be a site of transition in removing the content of past selves that participants identified as problematic. Additionally, Luke is a poet, graphic novelist, and mental health activist. Since 2009, Luke has been performing poetry sets at spoken-word venues across Western Canada. As a mental health advocate, he has organized poetry and music open mics, Unquiet Minds I and II, to support and fundraise for youth mental health initiatives, as well as compiled, edited, and printed a book titled Unquiet Minds: Youth Anthology of Art and Poetry (2022), which features youth submissions that explore the theme of mental health as it intersects with their lives.

Currently, his research investigates how art hives and peer-mentoring networks can support young people in their mental health struggles in Canada. Through arts-based workshops and peer-group dialogues, he intends to facilitate the transference of emotional wherewithal and well-being (as dual protective factors) from an older cohort to a younger one who may be at risk of psychosis-related symptoms or have experienced an episode of psychosis. This study will generate a core formal blueprint for establishing a recovery community that cultivates and disseminates knowledge of key emotions through art and filmmaking (as novel forms of polyvocal, sensory-focused ethnography). These processes could pinpoint how youth construct their identities and symbolic lifeworlds as well as creatively support and even bolster the emotional dimensions of post-traumatic growth and/or recovery in psychosis.

In his spare time, Luke is an avid runner and marathoner; he is looking to get back into combat, striking sports like boxing, kickboxing, and Muay Thai to beat Montreal’s winter blues. Luke regularly attends Uplift, a men’s circle that focuses on cultivating peer-to-peer friendships, community-driven activism, accountability, and a flourishing sense of masculinity that inspires healthy forms of connection, giving, and dialogue. He is working on a spoken-word album, The Firedawn Vision, as well as two industry-level comic book series (or graphic novels) to submit to international publishers.