Making the road caminando de otra manera: Co‐constructing decolonial community psychologies from the Global South

Abstract

Current discussion on coloniality dismantles structures embedded in neoliberal capitalism that maintain and perpetuate social pathologies. Theories and praxes emerging from Abya Yala (North, Central, and South America) provide academic and nonacademic contributions to co‐construct community psychologies de otra manera (otherwise). These accountable ways of knowing and acting in cultural context and local place, become ways of making counterculture to inform decolonial community psychologies. The epistemologies of the Global South have produced invaluable teachings for transformative revisions of community psychology within frameworks that go beyond liberation and toward decoloniality. Activist women and decolonial feminists from the Global South, contest patriarchal rationality and universalism and co‐construct new ways of being, thinking‐feeling, sentipensar, and acting. Decolonial paradigms weave networks of solidarity with communities in their struggles to sustain Indigenous cosmovisions, delinking from western‐centric ideologies that are not anthropocentric and promote sustainability, epistemic and ecological justice, and Sumak Kawsay/Buen Vivir (wellbeing) that includes the rights of the Earth. This paper deepens into decolonial community psychologies from Abya Yala that are making the road caminando (walking) de otra manera by applying methodologies of affective conviviality with communities, sentipensando, and co‐authoring collective stories that weave pluriversal solidary networks within ecologies of praxes into colorful tapestries of liberation. These are the proposed coordinates to sketch pathways toward decoloniality.

A qualitative study of women of color group psychotherapists: The wellspring of collective healing.

“…Second, our findings concur with the concept of acompañamiento (accompaniment), in that the participants place the utmost value in being with and bearing witness to their groups while also narrating and de-ideologizing how their everyday experiences are impacted by the interlocking systems of oppression. These findings are in alignment with liberation psychologists’ view of community in pursuit of liberation: “not as the other but as one of us” (Ciofalo, 2022, p. 4).…”

The global development of community psychology as reflected in the American Journal of Community Psychology

“…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).…”

Ciranda, a circle of encounter: Reflections on a decolonial pedagogical activity on human rights discourses with Latinx students

“…The connection via movement served as the foundation for the reflexive dialogues on difficult topics that would involve deconstructing violence. Because the body concretely felt this connection to others in the circle, we began to create an integrative experience that provided an embodied learning process as a community (Ciofalo 2021 ).…”

“…Freire ( 1979 ) points out that it is necessary to comprehend reality in a questioning way to develop a critical consciousness. The group experience of the ciranda therefore served as a decolonial pedagogy for developing knowledge and understanding, at the same time as Latinx students challenged and deconstructed discourses on human rights that overlook the experiences and desires of communities affected by these systems who continued to live on the margins (Ciofalo 2021 ). Radical hope alongside collective action were named as strategies for imagining other possible worlds (Ginwright 2010 ).…”