Paper long abstract:

The paper examines the activities of Mental Health Advocacy Ghana a WhatsApp group of mental health professionals, other health professionals passionate about mental health, journalists and consumers of mental health services both in Ghana and in the diaspora. Using Haas' (1992) definition of epistemic community, I explore the parallels between this group and an epistemic community and concludes that it qualifies as an epistemic community. With this understanding, I proceed to explore how the group through its deliberation and actions, is shaping three outcomes: 1) mental health knowledge production; 2) costs and benefits of international knowledge migration and 3) mental health advocacy and practice in Ghana. The intercourse between Ghanaian mental health professional diaspora and mental health professionals in Ghana is sometimes fraught with tensions highlighting the different contexts in which they are embedded. How these tensions impact the above three outcomes are discussed.