Exploring human trafficking of marginalized communities through the lens of liberation psychology.

Abstract

intention of promoting holistic liberation for all people (Martín-Baró, 1994). While scholarship has grown in the documentation of the individual psychological consequences of human trafficking, less research has analyzed the interlocking webs of oppression that both promote and protect the trade of human beings. Whether addressing human trafficking for labor or for sexual exploitation, disenfranchised persons overwhelmingly face the greatest risk of human trafficking (Bryant-Davis & Tummala-Narra, 2017). The lives and bodies of oppressed peoples in the past and present have been treated as disposable-not simply by individuals but also by institutions, systems, and governments (Rajan & Bryant-Davis, 2021). This chapter first provides a brief overview of liberation psychology and then describes the intersection of oppression and human trafficking in the lives of those marginalized by race or ethnicity, socioeconomic status, gender, and sexuality. The authors also provide recommendations for psychologists to engage in professional actions to disrupt systems of oppression that perpetuate human trafficking. The aim of these recommendations is the promotion of holistic liberation, which includes the body, mind, emotions, social networks, political empowerment, and cultural heritage of marginalized persons. LIBERATION PSYCHOLOGYLiberation psychology, founded by Latin American social psychologist and priest Ignacio Martin-Baro, is rooted in the premise that psychological health is political and psychology can either play a central role in maintaining oppression or uplifting liberation (Comas-Díaz & Torres-Rivera, 2020). Martin-Baro argued that this choice is between continuing the status quo of centering people of European descent as the model of humanity and therefore promoting biases or beginning to make it a priority to attend to marginalized communities locally and globally (Barratt, 2011). Working in opposition to Western psychology, which is often decontextualized and ahistorical, liberation psychology works toward healing and empowering marginalized communities, which necessitates a psychological framework that is contextualized, systemic, historical, and sociopolitical (Comas-Díaz & Torres-Rivera, 2020). Falling under the umbrella of decolonizing psychology, or the active disruption of systemic oppression and the engaged attending to the experience and contributions of Indigenous peoples, liberation psychology meets these aims in theory and application (Yakushko, 2021).Liberation psychology mandates attending to the psychology of the marginalized as documented, framed, and studied by historically marginalizedCopyright American Psychological Association. Not for further distribution.Exploring Human Trafficking of Marginalized Communities • 55 and excluded psychologists (Burton & Guzzo, 2020). When Western psychologists study people and frame the Western experience and vantage point as neutral, the field inherently frames marginalized and excluded persons as pathological, deficient, and abnormal. By challenging no...