Reflections on the Future of Community Psychology from the Generations after Swampscott: A Commentary and Introduction to the Special Issue

Abstract

This special issue commemorates the 50th anniversary of the founding of U.S. community psychology in Swampscott, Massachusetts in 1965. The issue includes commentaries from a cross-section of community psychologists educated in community psychology training programs established after Swampscott, in the 1970s or later. The contributors, who vary in their involvement in community-engaged research, training, and practice, offer a diverse set of perspectives on the field. Each was asked to reflect on the future of community psychology based on their own training and experiences. After providing some background to the Swampscott Conference and the era in which it took place, I offer a few of my own reflections on community psychology's future growth and development. I then introduce the 15 commentaries that follow.

Toward an Ethical Reflective Practice of a Theory in the Flesh: Embodied Subjectivities in a Youth Participatory Action Research Mural Project

“…Specifically, I examine how my lived experiences, identities, and positionalities, emerged in a Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) after‐school program with low‐income and working‐class youth of Color from predominantly Latinx communities. This paper contributes to the emerging literature on the values of engaging and processing heart work through an ethical reflective practice (Bond & Harrell, ; Gone, ; Langhout, ; Lykes & Crosby, ; Reyes Cruz & Sonn, ; Silva, ; Tebes, ; Trickett, , ). Moreover, it adds to the growing scholarship on community psychology competencies, the diversity of voices within the field, and the development of an ethical framework for our discipline – one that centers the researcher's embodied subjectivities (Allen & Mohatt, ; Bond, ; Campbell & Morris, ; Gone, ; Langhout, ; Silva, ), and the diversity of voices within the field.…”

“…An ethical reflective practice encourages the community psychologist to problematize power and to intentionally reflect upon the re/actions that emerge in the research context. Reflexivity across multiple phases of the research process is crucial to a community psychology for liberation (Allen & Mohatt, ; Campbell & Morris, ; Gone, ; Langhout, , ; Schensul & Trickett, ; Tebes, ).…”

“…In working against systems of oppression, scholar‐activists cannot merely address systems of power and inequity from a theoretical and/or methodological standpoint (Allen & Mohatt, ; Gone, ; Langhout, , ; Moraga, ; Reyes Cruz & Sonn, ; Tebes, ; Trickett, , ). To operate from such a standpoint, and without a reflective heartfelt grappling of our own power and privilege, the dismantling of oppressions cannot take place (Anzaldúa & Moraga, ).…”

“…Community psychology has long advocated for individual and community empowerment, as well as equitable decision‐making and wellbeing through the elimination of oppressive social conditions (Kelly, , ; Martín‐Baró, ; Prilleltensky, ; Rappaport, ; Reyes Cruz & Sonn, ; Tebes, ; Trickett, , ; Watts & Serrano‐García, ). With values rooted in social justice, community psychology is concerned with facilitating empowering participatory processes that are liberatory and anti‐oppressive (Ayala‐Alcantar, Dello Stritto, & Gúzman, ; Cosgrove & McHugh, ; Hill, Bond, Mulvey, & Terenzio, ; Lykes & Crosby, ; Lykes & Scheib, ; Mulvey et al, ).…”

“…Past and recent scholars have also called upon community psychologists to incorporate reflexivity and decoloniality in the formation of community psychology values, and as means to foster the development of scholar‐activists (Langhout, , ; Lykes & Crosby, ; Rappaport, ; Reyes Cruz & Sonn, ; Tebes, ; Trickett, , ; Watts & Serrano‐García, ). Identified as a core competency in community psychology, reflexivity is characterized by a practice of self‐reflection and introspective awareness that involves being, or becoming, cognizant of one's values, biases, assumptions, and positionalities throughout the research process (Case, ).…”