Power of Recognition and Redistribution: An Analysis of the Advocacy Strategies of the National Alliance for Mental Illness

This study considers the strategies the National Alliance for Mental Illness (NAMI) uses to advocate for those living with mental illness in the United States. As a grassroots organization, NAMI works to achieve social equity for that population by redressing injustices that are based on stigma. I illustrate the ways in which NAMI defines the injustices of stigma as problems of both maldistribution and misrecognition in ways that hearken to Nancy Fraser’s arguments for the need to treat distribution and recognition as integrally interconnected in creating social problems. Throughout the article, I use Fraser’s analytical framework to analyse how the organization works to remedy those two injustices through affirmative, transformative, and non-reformist reform strategies. The effective and insightful use of these strategies makes them a good example for other organizations