Abstract:We reflect on decolonization and in particular the process of decolonizing our own minds. We discuss the need for radical decolonization of psychology and for critique of community psychology's relationship to both psychology and the Academy, noting ways in which community psychology itself becomes appropriated for the colonizing project of the Academy. Using collaborative autoethnography (CAE), a method that involves “collaborative poetics,” which chimes with the emphasis on participatory research in communit… Show more
“…A special issue of AJCP on “Fostering and sustaining transnational solidarities for transformative social change” edited by Sonn et al (2022) provided a huge impetus for multinational collaborative articles by authors from Australia, Chile, Colombia, and the UK (Marinkovic Chavez et al, 2022); Peru, Spain, and US (Suarez‐Balcazar et al, 2022); Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, and the US (Ciofalo, Dudgeon, et al, 2022); US and Indonesia (Fernández et al, 2022); Scotland and Australia (Drake et al, 2022); and Germany, US, Mexico, and Brazil (Hagelskamp et al, 2022) on a new global hub for participatory democracy in “nearly 40 countries.” The issue also included papers on work in Colombia (Escobar, 2022), Ireland (Vine & Greenwood, 2022), India (Dutta et al, 2022), Canada, and the US (including one on epistemologies of the Global South: Ciofalo, 2022). The latest multinational AJCP article surveyed practitioners trained in the US, Canada, Australia, and the UK (Ma et al 2023).…”
Section: Ajcp International Coverage Overtime By Continentmentioning
This commentary presents a virtual special issue on the global growth of community psychology (CP), particularly, but not exclusively, as reflected in the American Journal of Community Psychology (AJCP). CP exists in at least 50 countries all over the world, in many of those for over 25 years. Yet, aside from several early Israeli articles, AJCP rarely published work from or about countries outside the US and Canada until the early 2000s, when the number of international articles began to rise sharply. The focus of CP developed differently in different continents. CP in Australia and New Zealand initially followed North America's emphasis on improving social service systems, but has since focused more on environmental and indigenous cultural and decolonial issues that are as salient in those countries as in North America, but have drawn much more attention. CP came later to most of Asia, where it also tended to follow the North American path, but starting in Japan, India, and Hong Kong and now in China and elsewhere, it is establishing its own way. The other two global hotspots for CP for over 40 years have been Europe and Latin America. The level and focus of CP in Europe varies in each country, with some focused on applied developmental psychology and/or community services and others advancing critical and liberation psychology. CP in Latin America evolved from social psychology, but like CP in Sub‐Saharan Africa, is also more explicitly political due to a history of political oppression, social activism, and the limitations of individualistic psychology to focus on social change, overcoming poverty, and interventions by (not just for) community members. Despite those differences, CP literature over the past 23 years suggests an increasingly common interest in social justice, multinational collaborations, and decoloniality. There is still a need for more truly (bidirectional) cross‐cultural, comparative work for mutual learning, sharing of ideas, methods, and intervention practices, and for CP to develop in countries and communities throughout the globe where it could have the greatest impact.
“…A special issue of AJCP on “Fostering and sustaining transnational solidarities for transformative social change” edited by Sonn et al (2022) provided a huge impetus for multinational collaborative articles by authors from Australia, Chile, Colombia, and the UK (Marinkovic Chavez et al, 2022); Peru, Spain, and US (Suarez‐Balcazar et al, 2022); Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, and the US (Ciofalo, Dudgeon, et al, 2022); US and Indonesia (Fernández et al, 2022); Scotland and Australia (Drake et al, 2022); and Germany, US, Mexico, and Brazil (Hagelskamp et al, 2022) on a new global hub for participatory democracy in “nearly 40 countries.” The issue also included papers on work in Colombia (Escobar, 2022), Ireland (Vine & Greenwood, 2022), India (Dutta et al, 2022), Canada, and the US (including one on epistemologies of the Global South: Ciofalo, 2022). The latest multinational AJCP article surveyed practitioners trained in the US, Canada, Australia, and the UK (Ma et al 2023).…”
Section: Ajcp International Coverage Overtime By Continentmentioning
This commentary presents a virtual special issue on the global growth of community psychology (CP), particularly, but not exclusively, as reflected in the American Journal of Community Psychology (AJCP). CP exists in at least 50 countries all over the world, in many of those for over 25 years. Yet, aside from several early Israeli articles, AJCP rarely published work from or about countries outside the US and Canada until the early 2000s, when the number of international articles began to rise sharply. The focus of CP developed differently in different continents. CP in Australia and New Zealand initially followed North America's emphasis on improving social service systems, but has since focused more on environmental and indigenous cultural and decolonial issues that are as salient in those countries as in North America, but have drawn much more attention. CP came later to most of Asia, where it also tended to follow the North American path, but starting in Japan, India, and Hong Kong and now in China and elsewhere, it is establishing its own way. The other two global hotspots for CP for over 40 years have been Europe and Latin America. The level and focus of CP in Europe varies in each country, with some focused on applied developmental psychology and/or community services and others advancing critical and liberation psychology. CP in Latin America evolved from social psychology, but like CP in Sub‐Saharan Africa, is also more explicitly political due to a history of political oppression, social activism, and the limitations of individualistic psychology to focus on social change, overcoming poverty, and interventions by (not just for) community members. Despite those differences, CP literature over the past 23 years suggests an increasingly common interest in social justice, multinational collaborations, and decoloniality. There is still a need for more truly (bidirectional) cross‐cultural, comparative work for mutual learning, sharing of ideas, methods, and intervention practices, and for CP to develop in countries and communities throughout the globe where it could have the greatest impact.
“…The knowledge practices in the issue include autoethnography and collective autoethnography (Drake et al, 2022), storytelling and counterstorytelling (Dutta et al, 2021; Escobar, 2021) letter writing (Fernández et al, 2021), photo‐elicitation (Vine & Greenwood, 2021), co‐interviews (Saleem & Li, 2022; Vine & Greenwood, 2021), poetry and other forms of expression (Dutta et al, 2021). Fernández et al (2021) in using letter writing, a method with a long history in feminist approaches write that:Letters transcend and trespass; they also thread.…”
“…Drake et al (2022) use collaborative autoethnography to explore how “as ‘Westerners’” they “might confront what is known as “Western’ psychology.” They engage in critical practices, decolonizing the mind, in contact zones, creating a third space from which to enact radical imagination, in line with what Graham Smith (2017) calls for the enactment of an “indigenous imagination” often suppressed by colonialism. Through this embodied approach they opened up a space “to consider the ways we collectively have been implicated in wider coloniality.” Escobar (2021) accompanies survivors of state violence guided by ethnography to show how “embodied memory becomes a practice of resiliency that transmits purpose to the lives of survivors in the present and how this relationship with the past and ongoing violence shapes the justice centered actions and visions for the future.” In another example of responding to the pain, described as pandemic grief resulting from COVID‐19 pandemic‐related suffering, Ummel et al (2021) describe a solidarity‐driven response based on the notion of compassionate communities.…”
As we planned this special issue, the world was in the midst of a pandemic, one which brought into sharp focus many of the pre‐existing economic, social, and climate crises, as well as, trends of widening economic and social inequalities. The pandemic also brought to the forefront an epistemic crisis that continues to decentre certain knowledges while maintaining the hegemony of Eurocentric ways of knowing and being. Thus, we set out to explore the possibilities that come with widening our ecology of knowledge and approaches to inquiry, including the power of critical reflective praxis and consciousness, and the important practices of repowering marginalised and oppressed groups. In this paper, we highlight scholarship that reflects a breadth of theories, methods, and practices that forge alliances, in and outside the academy, in different solidarity relationships toward liberation and wellbeing. Our desire as co‐editors was not to endorse the plurality of solidarities expressed in the papers as an unyielding methodological or conceptual framework, but rather to hold them lightly within thematic spaces as invitations for readers to consider. Through editorial collaboration, we arrived at the following three thematic spaces: (1) ecologies of being and knowledge: Indigenous knowledge, networks, and plurilogues; (2) naming coloniality in context: Histories in the present and a wide lens; (3) relational knowledge practices: Creative joy of knowing beyond disciplines. From these thematic spaces we conclude that through repowering epistemic communities and narratives rooted in truth‐telling, a plurality of solidarities are fostered and sustained locally and transnationally. Underpinned by an ethic of care, solidarity relationships are simultaneously unsettling dominant forms of knowledge and embrace ways of knowing and being that advances dignity, community, and nonviolence.
Although chronic pain is one of the most common health issues affecting children, disparities in access to behavioral healthcare limit its proper identification and management. There is a critical need to move beyond traditional care delivery approaches for chronic pain to reach those in communities that have limited access to care. We argue one means of doing so is to leverage our skills and expertise as psychologists to partner with and train professionals who have established relationships with youth in these communities. Drawing from a community-engaged dissemination and implementation science framework and our research implementing pain management strategies in rural and underserved communities, we review actionable strategies for disrupting traditional psychological methods to expand access to care for children with chronic pain.
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