A self-heuristic inquiry: Unpacking the use of "Decolonization" in therapy and mental health care with and for racialized communities

As a registered psychotherapist and art therapist, my clinical training was primarily based on North American clinical approaches influenced by traditional Euro and western-centric clinical theories of human behavior. I completed my training feeling certain that traditional clinical mental health practices were not an appropriate fit for racialized communities and could have negative implications for their healing and well-being. As clinicians, it is our moral obligation to support and enhance the quality of life for marginalized groups. We can do this by challenging our values and knowledge that have been defined and influenced by structures (i.e., education, training, etc.) embedded in these colonial teachings. For this paper, I used a heuristic self-inquiry research method to investigate these concerns. I interviewed other racialized psychotherapists practicing in Turtle Island (currently mostly occupied by the political entities of Canada and the United States) with the aim to learn how and if decolonization can be used in therapy practice. With this research, I (1) identified a gap in care for racialized communities, (2) questioned if or how a decolonizing approach to care should be considered, (3) explored my discomfort with practitioners in the field that claim their position on decolonizing therapy, practice, and approaches, and lastly (4) propose other ways of knowing that can inform new ways of practicing therapy. The results of this research helped to problematize the language and use of decolonizing therapeutic practices while learning about other concepts that may be relevant yet distinct, such as principles of coloniality/decoloniality. Those of us, therapists or researchers, wanting to disrupt the current practice of therapy need to work together, share knowledge, and challenge each other, so that we can transform the way we practice as psychotherapists. This paper is my contribution to this conversation.

Raced and risky subjects: The interplay of racial and managerial ideologies as an expression of "colorblind" racism

Contemporary manifestations of race are dynamic and elusive in the forms and shapes they take. "Colourblind" racism is effective at drawing on seemingly objective and race-neutral discourses to obfuscate racialized forms of structural exclusion. Framed by Critical Race Theory and Critical Narrative Analysis this paper presents an example from the Australian context that examines the relationships between a grassroots initiative developed by creatives from the African diaspora and two not-for-profit human services organizations, to illustrate how ideologies of race are enacted and obscured by managerialist ideologies and discourses of risk. Specifically, it shows how harmful dominant cultural narratives of deficit and danger transforms racialized Africans in Australia into "risky subjects." In a managerialist organization, risk must be controlled, and thus risk becomes the rationality for the control of racialized and risky subjects. Resistance to control by those subjects produces forms of organizational defensiveness that are mobilized through managerialist discourses and practices that work to structurally exclude. These findings illustrate the ways ideologies of race work alongside and through other ideological discourses and practices which render racialized dynamics of oppression race-neutral.

Identifying abolitionist alignments in community psychology: A path toward transformation

Psychology is grounded in the ethical principles of beneficence and nonmaleficence, that is, "do no harm." Yet many have argued that psychology as a field is attached to carceral systems and ideologies that uphold the prison industrial complex (PIC), including the field of community psychology (CP). There have been recent calls in other areas of psychology to transform the discipline into an abolitionist social science, but this discourse is nascent in CP. This paper uses the semantic device of "algorithms" (e.g., conventions to guide thinking and decision-making) to identify the areas of alignment and misalignment between abolition and CP in the service of moving us toward greater alignment. The authors propose that many in CP are already oriented to abolition because of our values and theories of empowerment, promotion, and systems change; our areas of misalignment between abolition and CP hold the potential to evolve. We conclude with proposing implications for the field of CP, including commitments to the belief that (1) the PIC cannot be reformed, and (2) abolition must be aligned with other transnational liberation efforts (e.g., decolonization).

Sembrando Semillas, sowing seeds: Reflections on Latinx representations in US community psychology's AJCP

Latinx have contributed to the foundation and formation of the United States, and as this demographic increases, overlooking their unique experiences and lived conditions can limit community psychology's potential to better support them in their wellbeing. Thus, in alignment with the call for a virtual special issue highlighting critical themes in the American Journal of Community Psychology (AJCP), we take an exemplar approach to reviewing 15 articles published between 1979 and 2023. We highlight these articles for their unique contributions in laying the foundation or shifting the discourses of Latinx in the United States. We organize each article under one of the following themes: (1) Challenging notions of Latinx as passive victims or deficient; (2) Documenting the misrepresentation and invisibility of Latinx in community psychology; (3) Affirming Latinx as knowledge producers, protagonists, and agents of change; and (4) Centering Latin American epistemologies that foster liberatory praxis for and with Latinx. Via these themes, we illustrate where the discipline has been, and offer reflection for where it can move toward as it relates to Latinx. In doing so, we highlight perspectives grounded in Latinx communities. Our review is not exhaustive; however, it offers our subjective interpretation or curation of the articles we acknowledge as fundamental to the discipline's formation, and our learning and ongoing growth as critical community psychologists of Latin American heritage with affinities to Latinx communities in the United States. We offer this brief review as a semilla (seed) to the possibilities ahead as we remain open to reflection, dialog and learning.

Seeking utopia: Psychologies' waves toward decoloniality

This paper provides a review of empirical studies published with a decolonial epistemic approach in psychology. Our goal was to better understand how decolonial approaches are being practiced empirically in psychology, with an emphasis on community-social psychology. We first discuss the context of colonization and coloniality in the research process as orienting information. We identified 17 peer-reviewed empirical articles with a decolonial approach to psychology scholarship and discerned four waves that characterize the articles: relationally-based research to transgress fixed hierarchies and unsettle power, research from the heart, sociohistorical intersectional consciousness, and desire-based future-oriented research to rehumanize and seek utopia. Community-social psychology research with a decolonial approach has the potential to remember grassroots efforts, decolonizing our world.

Toward a community psychology transformative praxis: A descriptive review

In this paper, we present a descriptive review of the foundational components of transformation-the starting places and gaps-in a move toward synthesizing current works into a Community Psychology Transformative Praxis. This review focuses on published work identified in North American Community Psychology journals (namely two United States based journals)-a review from the belly of the neoliberal and imperial beast. We reviewed and categorized seven foundational dimensions for beginning and sustaining transformative praxis and which represent how Community Psychology (CP), in the United States publishing context, is engaging in transformative efforts. In Part 1, we present three dimensions of transformative process, focused on early and iterative practices that develop and enact shared (1) values, (2) visions of a just world, and (3) critical problem frames. In part 2 we present four additional dimensions of transformative action; the considerations that inform action in a given transformative process or intervention including (4) planning for the long-term nature of transformation, (5) targeting multiple levels of analysis, (6) engaging in solidarity with those most impacted by injustice, and (7) identifying and resisting power holders and/or power structures that prevent transformation and maintain the status quo. In Part 3, we review the relationship between process and action, where processes can be understood as driving, directing, and bounding the types of actions or interventions taken or imagined in a particular transformative intervention. We close the paper with critical reflections and calls to action to further develop the transformative potential of CP praxis and name the tendency of settling for ameliorative solutions to problems needing transformative solutions.

The society for community research and action on a path toward conocimiento: From silences and statements to solidarities in action in U.S. community psychology

A first-person narrative essay is presented through a critically reflexive auto-ethnography of a community psychologist's experiences as a member of the Society for Community Research and Action (SCRA) and (as of this writing) co-chair of the Cultural, Ethnic and Racial Affairs council. Through this methodological orientation, an analysis of some of the discourses that circulated within the SCRA listserv in relation to the murder of Mr. George Floyd, and amidst an ensuing pandemic are analyzed and discussed in relation to Anzaldúa's seven stages of conocimiento. The intentions that guide and ground this first-person account are to animate deeper reflection, accountability, and solidarity-in-action, as well as an organizational shift in the culture of the SCRA. Guided by a set of questions-What accounts for the organizational silences within the SCRA? How did the SCRA respond or engage with the murder of Mr. Floyd, anti-Blackness, Black Lives Matter, and related racial justice efforts?-the purpose is to turn a critical social analysis gaze to the SCRA in order to align its purpose, values, and mission with liberation and a decolonial feminist praxis. Anzaldúa's seven-stage framework of conocimiento is utilized to describe the possibilities for an organizational cultural shift in the SCRA that aligns with racial justice and liberatory decolonial feminist praxes.

Outsider at home: Reading Babasaheb Ambedkar as a radical, decolonial psychologist

OBJECTIVES

Known primarily as the architect of the constitution of India, Babasaheb Ambedkar was also a human rights lawyer, an economist, a social justice advocate, and a polymath. Yet his story is often overlooked in favor of national leaders such as Gandhi. This study highlights Ambedkar as a visionary who called for a radical and new psychology of self that was anchored in ideas of social justice, equity and full participation. Furthermore this study fills the gap in the field of psychobiography which rarely reflects the cultural lives and experiences of the Global South.

METHODS

This study follows the psychobiographical method and uses memoirs, essays, speeches, and biographies as data.

RESULTS

Three "turning points" in Ambedkar's life are examined: (1) Early childhood experiences of being an "untouchable"; (2) Returning to India for employment after completing his doctorate in the U.S.; (3) Converting to Buddhism in later life. Using a decolonial theoretical lens, we analyze the multiple ways that he experienced being colonized and dehumanized.

CONCLUSION

As he defied the caste structures within his own culture and resisted colonialism, Ambedkar developed a syncretic politics of resistance that emphasized the creation of a decolonized Dalit self and community.

Towards a social psychology of precarity

This article introduces the special issue 'Towards a Social Psychology of Precarity' that develops an orienting lens for social psychologists' engagement with the concept. As guest editors of the special issue, we provide a thematic overview of how 'precarity' is being conceptualized throughout the social sciences, before distilling the nine contributions to the special issue. In so doing, we trace the ways in which social psychologists are (dis)engaging with the concept of precarity, yet too, explore how precarity constitutes, and is embedded within, the discipline itself. Resisting disciplinary decadence, we collectively explore what a social psychology of precarity could be, and view working with/in precarity as fundamental to addressing broader calls for the social responsiveness of the discipline. The contributing papers, which are methodologically pluralistic and provide rich conceptualisations of precarity, challenge reductionist individualist understandings of suffering and coping and extend social science theorizations on precarity. They also highlight the ways in which social psychology remains complicit in perpetuating different forms of precarity, for both communities and academics. We propose future directions for the social psychological study of precarity through four reflexive questions that we encourage scholars to engage with so that we may both work with/in, and intervene against, 'the precarious'.

Identity Matters: A Social Psychology of Everyday Citizenship

This paper takes as its focus the need for psychologists to take issues of culture seriously. In doing so, it is important that psychologists adopt a critical approach to many widely held and taken-for-granted assumptions about culture and cultural processes. In particular, there is a pressing need to explore the ways in which constructions of culture routinely feature in the marginalisation of minority group members. Using examples drawn from the UK, I explore how cultural diversity can be represented by majority group members to question others’ belonging within the national community. In turn, I consider the implications of this for minority group members’ everyday (informal) experiences of citizenship (e.g. their ability to be heard in discussions about the nation and the challenges it faces). I also consider minority group members’ experiences of such marginalisation and the various ways in which exclusionary constructions of culture and belonging may be contested.

Fostering and sustaining transnational solidarities for transformative social change: Advancing community psychology research and action

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.

Dissident women's letter writing as decolonial plurilogues of relational solidarities for epistemic justice

Braiding our words, "dissi-dance," and desires, this article engages how various social actors, and communities-which we are a part of and belong to-challenge structural violence, oppression, inequity, and social, racial, and epistemic injustice. We thread these reflections through our written words, in subversive letters which we offer in the form of a written relational conversation among us: a plurilogue that emerges in response to our specific locations, commitments, and refusals, as well as dissents. Our stories and process of dissent within the various locations, relationships, and contexts that we occupy served as the yarn and needle to thread our stories, posed questions and reflections. Braiding, threading and weaving together, we animate deep decolonial inquiries within ourselves, and our different cultural contexts and countries. Refusing individualism-the illusions of objectivity as distance, the academic as expert, and the exile of affect and emotion on academic pages-we choose to occupy academic writing and ask: What if academic writing were stitched with blood and laughter, relationships and insights, rage and incites? What if, at the nexus of critical psychology and decolonizing feminism, we grew an "embodied praxis?" Unlike academic writing, traditionally designed to camouflage affect, connection, relationality and subjectivity, these letters are unapologetically saturated in care and wisdom toward a narrative-based embodied practice: decolonial plurilogues of relational solidarities for epistemic justice. Our plurilogue of dissent offers a view to advance community research and action with goals of liberation, decoloniality, and community wellness.

Community organizing: Studying the development and exercise of grassroots power

There is now wide recognition that grassroots community organizing is a uniquely necessary approach for contending with the persistent and escalating socioeconomic inequities that manifest as disparities across many societal domains, including housing, safety, education, and mental and physical health. The articles in this special issue report findings from studies designed to increase understanding of community organizing processes and produce actionable knowledge that can enhance these and other similar efforts to create more equitable and just cities and regions. These studies examine a variety of community organizing campaigns, initiatives, and networks in North America, as well as one in Bulgaria, and one in South Africa. These groups are building social power and demanding economic, racial, educational, and environmental justice. In this introductory article, we highlight some of the themes that emerge from this set of studies and make recommendations for future roles that research can play in advancing collective understanding and the practical objectives of grassroots organizing initiatives.