With a response by marcela polancoThis writing illuminates a possible stance for an ethic of justice-doing as a frame for community work and therapy. This approach to justice-doing is offered as an imperfection project, and while incomplete and necessarily flawed, it has been helpful to groups of workers striving to practice more in line with our collective commitments for social justice. This approach is profoundly collaborative and informed by decolonizing practice and anti-oppression activism. I will describe the intentions that guide this stance, which include striving towards centering ethics, doing solidarity, addressing power, fostering collective sustainability, critically engaging with language, and structuring safety. Even an imperfect orientation towards justice-doing can open our work to transformations for ourselves, the people we work alongside, and our communities and society, and offer the potential for experiencing the social diving. This article is framed from a keynote delivered at the Winds of Change Conference held in Ottawa, Ontario in June 2012. I acknowledge the Algonquin people whose territories we met on.Finally, marcela polanco (2011), who describes her work as a therapy of solidarity, will offer a reflection on my position for an ethic of justice-doing.My work is profoundly collaborative and informed by decades of solidarity with direct action activists, and in particular my work alongside survivors of torture in several countries, and here I include Indigenous peoples who have survived the political violence of what is called "residential schools." I have been informed and transformed by my work. This work comes from a decolonizing and anti-oppression stance, which is not to say it is correct or safe. I embrace this work very much as an anti-perfection project. I hold huge gratitude for the imperfect solidarity of fellowships of activists, coworkers, and "clients" across several decades, who have informed this work. My continued respect to David Paré, who invited this keynote and has continually carved out space for me in my tension-filled relationship with academia. As always, heartfelt thanks to my editor, Coral Payne, who continues to make complex ideas accessible. This writing occurred on unceded Indigenous territories, which were never surrendered.

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In this paper, the authors describe their orientation to social justice based community work. The tenets of this work include: an ethical orientation towards staying alive in the work, descriptions of social justice, engaging with a hopeful skepticism, responding to privatized pain with justice-doing, and contesting the individualism of “burnout”. This is followed by reflections on the role of solidarity, the sacred, revolutionary love, resistance, and an ethic of belonging in the commitments to staying fully alive in community work. The authors discuss the importance of forging communities of care with other practitioners through shared and collectively held ethics.

This article presents alternative ways to respond to events understood as ‘traumatic’ in most psychological contexts. It questions the medicalisation and individualisation of persons’ resistance against harms, especially violence and structural oppressions, as criteria of mental illness and trauma. I present activist‐informed approaches to suffering and oppression that are centred on witnessing acts of resistance. This work comes from my ethical stance for justice‐doing and responding to colonisation with accountability as a white settler practitioner. Witnessing requires that we situate personal suffering in its sociopolitical context and resist the individualisation and medicalisation of suffering. Activist practices of witnessing include the duty of the witness to work to change the social contexts of oppression, addressing power both personally and structurally, and working towards co‐creating a just society.Practitioner points Resistance to suffering and oppression is always present as persons always act to guard their dignity and move towards safety Justice‐doing and a decolonising stance for the work is required to resist psychology’s neutrality and objectivity that obscure contexts of structural oppression A witnessing stance from direct action activism is useful in making space for resistance The practitioner’s responsibility is to move beyond witnessing to create social change and address contexts of injustice and limited life choices that are the frame for suffering

The work of allies in community work is informed by justice-doing and decolonizing practice. A brief description of being an ally is outlined here, as well as understandings of the importance of the concepts of fluidity and groundless solidarity in ally work. "Leaning in" is described and offered as a way to invite accountability while resisting righteousness. "Leaning in" invites collective accountability, which is a more useful concept than personal responsibility, which sides with individualism and the idea we are only held accountable for our personal actions. Strategies for being an ally are considered, including engaging with a hopeful skepticism while reflexively questioning whether we are "walking the talk." The limitations of allies are discussed, as well as the need to make repair for our failures as allies. Strategies for resisting both unity and division are addressed, as is the possibility of creating cultures of critique that allow for something other than attack and division. Imperfect solidarity based on points of connection is offered as a useful strategy for maintaining good-enough and required alliances across time. Finally, some exercises are offered for readers to engage with: an inquiry into their histories and imperfect practices of being and needing allies, and some invitations to step into domains where they have previously not served as allies. Keywordsally, community work, leaning in, power, privilege, fluidity, imperfect solidarity Authors' NoteThis work is profoundly collaborative and owes much to a diversity of activists who have been in imperfect solidarity with me across time. Graeme Sampson and Sherry Simon, practicum graduate students from the Adler School of Professional Psychology, critiqued the ally exercises and contributed to their usefulness. Thanks to WAVAW for allowing me to reproduce a version of "Story from the 20 Bus," which originally appeared in their newsletter. Sid Chow Tan, Andrew Larcombe, Paka Ka Liu, Aaron Munro, Tod Augusta-Scott, Jeff Smith, Allan Wade, and John Winslade offered generative and expansive critiques that improved this work. Mr. Peaslee helped again.