A history of women and feminist perspectives in community psychology

Threading a decolonial feminist response to COVID-19: One community psychologist's reflection on the assemblages of violence

To challenge and interrogate the assemblages of violence produced by racial capitalism, and exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, community psychologists must engage in a transdisciplinary critical ethically reflexive practice. In this reflexive essay, or first-person account, I offer a decolonial feminist response to COVID-19 that draws strength from the writings of three women of Color decolonial and postcolonial feminist thinkers: Gloria E. Anzaldúa, Sylvia Wynter, and Arundhati Roy. Through their writings I share my reflections on the sociopolitical moment associated with COVID-19. Of importance, I argue in support of engaging a decolonial feminist standpoint to understand the inequitable and dehumanizing conditions under COVID-19, and the possibilities for transformative justice. I offer this reflexive essay with the intention of summoning community psychology and community psychologists to look toward transdisciplinarity, such as that which characterizes a decolonial standpoint and feminist epistemologies. Writings oriented toward imagination, relationality, and borderland ways of thinking that are outside, in-between or within, the self and the collective "we" can offer valuable guidance. The invitation toward a transdisciplinary critical ethically reflexive practice calls us to bear witness to movements for social justice; to leverage our personal, professional and institutional resources to support communities in struggle. A decolonial feminist standpoint guided by the words of Anzaldúa, Wynter, and Roy can cultivate liberatory conditions that can materialize as racial freedom, community wellbeing, and societal thriving.

Reproductive justice for unhoused women: An integrative review of the literature

This review examines the reproductive health experiences of unhoused women and youth. Guided by the reproductive justice framework, this review examines barriers to accessing contraception, medical abortion, and prenatal care while homeless. Twenty-one articles were identified through keyword searches in Google Scholar, Ebscohost Academic Search Premier, and PsycINFO. In included articles, barriers were identified at the individual, relational, and contextual levels. Findings from this scoping review illustrate the need to examine multiple levels of analysis when seeking to improve access to family planning services for individuals experiencing homelessness. Included literature suggests an overabundance of research documenting barriers to contraceptive care relative to the literature examining abortion and prenatal care experiences and a scarcity of research examining barriers to reproductive justice among unhoused individuals who do not identify as women.

Research Methods in the Study of Intersectionality in Psychology: Examples Informed by a Decade of Collaborative Work With Majority World Women's Grassroots Activism

Very few theories have generated the kind of interdisciplinary and international engagement that marks the intellectual history of intersectionality, leaving some authors to suggest that intersectionality is the most important theoretical contribution that the field of women’s studies has made thus far. Yet, consideration of intersectionality as a research paradigm has yet to gain a wide foothold in mainstream psychology. The current article uses a program of multimethod research designed in partnership with, and intending to center the intersectional experiences of, majority world women to propose a research agenda for the empirical study of intersectionality. Specifically, it is suggested that a research agenda rooted in intersectional understandings requires that: (1) researchers think carefully about social categories of analysis and how their methodological choices can best answer those questions, (2) psychologists reposition their research questions to examine processes by which structural inequities lead to power imbalances and gender-based norms that sustain women’s experience of marginalization and oppression, and (3) we understand how intersectional experiences can be applied toward change. Intersectional investigations hold a key to interrupting the structural dimensions of power that result in egregious consequences to peoples’ social, economic, and political lives, but only if we radically restructure what we think about knowledge, our roles, and the products of our research.

On the Historical and Conceptual Foundations of a Community Psychology of Social Transformation

We examine historical and conceptual literature in community psychology in order to understand the field's potential to be the socially transformative subdiscipline of psychology to which it aspires. By reviewing papers from two prominent journals and other literature, we conclude that the claim that community psychology is well-suited to social transformation, because it is a product of Sixties' radicalism and is theoretically equipped, is untenable. Systematic accounts of the subdiscipline's origins suggest that the transformative aspirations of current community psychologists do not correspond to the subdiscipline's reformist past. Furthermore, in analyzing three related concepts currently employed in the field-social justice, power, and praxis-we show that each suffers from conceptual ambiguity and a restricted political scope. These conceptual flaws, coupled with community psychology's historical inclination toward social reform, inhibit the possibility of contributing to radical social transformation. We conclude that neither questionable historical claims nor ambiguous and politically dubious concepts support a community psychology of social transformation. We offer solutions for the historical and conceptual problems we identify and, as a broader solution to the problem of engaging in socially transformative work, propose that community psychologists should seek direct political engagement in solidarity with other citizens as fellow citizens not as psychologists.

Leading the Way on Diversity: Community Psychology's Evolution from Invisible to Individual to Contextual

To take up the AJCP editor's call to think forward in this article, I offer up three challenges that revolve around further contextualizing our understandings of diversity, i.e., reconsidering the notion of "difference" between discrete categories; more fully emphasizing diversity as socially situated; and further delving into local, setting-specific practices that shape the meanings of diversity. Enhanced attention to these three challenges can transform theory, research, and action about diversity as we move into community psychology's next 50 years.

Women creating public art and community, 2000-2014

This narrative describes a series of 15 short-term public art projects that were part of a program for women and girls in Lowell, Massachusetts, a mid-size city in the United States. The projects were designed to give public space to women's stories and perspectives by exhibiting their creative art in response to suggested themes. A few thousand women and girls representing diverse age and cultural groups created art based on their lived experiences. The organizers of the program met people in comfortable settings, tailored their art-making approaches to particular groups, and used inclusive processes in developing and executing the program. Program successes and challenges were related to the organizational structure of the art projects, the annual themes and art media, the extent of outreach and support, the process of creation, and the impact of art exhibits. Using community psychology and feminist frameworks, authors reflect on the projects and their relevance across contexts, highlight key organizing strategies, and identify ways the project represents community psychology in action.

A community psychology of men and masculinity: historical and conceptual review

This paper introduces the special section by presenting a historical and conceptual review of theory and research on the psychology of men and masculinity and then introducing the section's papers. Men have power because of their gender, but differ in access to power based on other individual characteristics such as social class, income, education, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or physical strength. Men typically have been studied as generic rather than gendered beings in psychology. In contrast, a gendered analysis of men highlights the ways in which men's experience, masculinity, and behavior contribute to health and social problems and to resources commonly addressed by community psychologists. Our gendered analysis suggests ways of working with men in group, organizational, and community settings to create positive individual and social change. Crucial to this analysis is the paradox that enacting masculinity both privileges and damages men. A second paradox stems from men having power as a group over women while individual men feel powerless or victimized by women as a group. The papers in this volume illustrate key themes of our historical and conceptual review through studies of adolescent and adult men as fathers, patients, partner abusers, support group participants and community members, and through examination of the impact of their gendered identities and behavior on health, well being, and justice.

Cultural competence in interdisciplinary collaborations: a method for respecting diversity in research partnerships

There is growing recognition of the need by funding agencies, universities, and research units for interdisciplinary research to tackle complex societal problems that cannot be adequately addressed by single disciplines alone. Interdisciplinary collaboration capitalizes on a diversity of perspectives and practices that each discipline offers in hopes of providing innovative solutions to multifaceted problems. However, for interdisciplinary work to be effective, members of the collaboration must recognize that cultural differences exist between and within disciplines. This paper conceptualizes disciplines as cultural groups and advocates for culturally competent practices to facilitate interdisciplinary research and practice. Specifically, each participant in interdisciplinary collaborations must value diversity, develop the capacity for self-assessment, work towards understanding one's own disciplinary culture, and be sensitive to the dynamics inherent when cultures interact. Additionally, members of any interdisciplinary endeavor must be cognizant of power dynamics at play and avoid such things as tokenism, informal hierarchies, and disciplinary policing. Through awareness of one's own disciplinary culture and sensitivity to others, interdisciplinary research and practice may provide creative solutions to important problems.

The spirit of community psychology. 2001 Seymour B. Sarason Award Address

Community psychology as a field may have lost some of its original spirit; a spirit dominant at the founding of the field. Spirit is a difficult concept to discuss since it is a concept beyond usual discourse in psychology as a denotative, measurable and verifiable concept. Taking the lead from William James, Spirit, however elusive, is most essential to a sense of self. I offer three suggestions to enhance and to make our individual and collective spirit more vital: (1) Continuing education in the history of community psychology; (2) Creating time to share stories about our work; (3) Creating safe settings to enlarge our spirit. These ideas are offered as pragmatic suggestions to enable us to create more coherence between our personal and professional selves.

THE INFLUENCE OF FEMINIST SELF-DEFINITION ON THE DEMOCRATIC ATTITUDES OF MANAGERS

The only consistent gender difference in management style reported in the literature is the more democratic style of women. Democratic leadership is a cornerstone of the feminist approach. The current exploratory study attempted to differentiate between the effect of feminist self-definition and gender in explaining differences in democratic attitudes of managers. Israeli male (43) and female (28) managers were questioned about their managerial attitudes and whether they are feminist or non-feminist. Results suggest that a surprisingly high number of both male and female managers defined themselves as feminist. Furthermore, feminist selfdefinition was found to explain several democratic managerial attitudes better than gender.