Power and action in critical theory across disciplines: implications for critical community psychology

Pride in our community: Reflecting on LGBTQ publications in the American Journal of Community Psychology

In this Virtual Special Issue (VSI), we curate and discuss a set of 28 articles previously published in the American Journal of Community Psychology (AJCP) focused on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) communities. The purpose of this VSI is to bring visibility to this body of scholarship in AJCP and to reflect on how the strengths of our field have been used throughout this work in pursuit of supporting LGBTQ wellbeing. In this VSI, we first discuss articles that help to set the historical background for publications in AJCP. We then discuss papers under the broad themes of HIV/AIDS, identities within ecological context, and social activism among LGBTQ communities. We then reflect on opportunities for our field to further leverage our strengths in contributing to LGBTQ scholarship. Overall, this VSI celebrates the contributions to LGBTQ research already present in AJCP, and we hope inspires future contributions to the pages of AJCP and beyond.

Exploring the Breastfeeding Experiences of African American Mothers Through a Critical Race Theory Lens

Background: Data from the Ohio Department of Health for Hamilton County reveal that the rate of breastfeeding steadily increased for non-Hispanic white babies from 72% initiation in 2006 to 79.8% initiation in 2018. Over the same time period, the rate of breastfeeding initiation increased from 52% to 65.7% for African American babies. Despite positive gains in breastfeeding for the African American community, significant disparities remain. Research Aim/Question(s): Our aim was to gain insight into the breastfeeding experiences of African American women and professionals working primarily with African American women to promote and support breastfeeding. Methods: In this study, a critical race theory approach was used to explore the lived experiences of African American women and health care providers who serve African American communities through the analysis of breakout conference sessions. Breakout sessions were semistructured, with questions developed in a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats analysis format aimed at obtaining information related to sociocultural factors impacting breastfeeding initiation and duration, with the goal of developing actionable community objectives to address breastfeeding disparities for African American women. Results: Three themes emerged stereotypes and microaggressions, representation, and provider support. Conclusion: Qualitative analysis of the conference proceedings reveals insights that can be developed into an action plan to address breastfeeding disparities in Hamilton County.

Psychological and political liberation: Strategies to promote power, wellness, and liberation among anti-racist activists

In recent years, there has been a robust racial justice movement in the United States, which has pursued power with the goal of promoting wellness and liberating people from racially and historically oppressed communities. Organizations such as Black Lives Matter and Showing Up for Racial Justice continue building power and promoting psychological and political liberation. The purpose of our study is to investigate the developmental processes by which anti-racist activists resist psychological and political oppression to approach wellness and liberation. We conducted 24 interviews from self-identified anti-racist activists in the United States and utilized thematic analysis to construct qualitative codes to identify the psychological and political strategies activists implemented in their racial justice work. We found that activists adopted four psychological strategies, two political strategies, and two bridging strategies to resist oppression. Psychologically, activists tended to examine political and historical contexts to understand the root causes of oppression and how their own oppressed and privileged identities fit within those larger systems. Politically, activists sought opportunities to enhance their capacity as activists and engage in critical actions to build power and seek liberation. Bridging these psychological and political domains, activists also formulated a theory of liberation and engaged in critical self-reflection, which guided their political actions.

Deconstructing hierarchies: Service users as co-teachers in occupational therapy education

BACKGROUND

While occupational therapy currently tends to view itself as operating based on a client-centered, collaborative approach, studies often reflect a gap between rhetoric and practice.

OBJECTIVE

This work presents a new pedagogic standard which moves away from the medical model and toward a collaborative, client-centred approach. It functions to support a practice which embraces the respect for, and partnership with, people receiving services and replaces historic patterns which may strengthen the legitimacy of the professional and sustain clients' dependence.

METHODS

This pedagogy develops a therapeutic dialogue which draws from partnerships created in the classroom, where occupational therapy students engage in courses with a co-teacher service user, and examines how the collaboration with service users contributes to the training of occupational therapy students.

CONCLUSIONS

Students and co-teachers can participate in the challenging experience of integrating theoretical knowledge with lived experience, thereby augmenting the development of a new and inclusive knowledge base.

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.

Constructing alternatives: Envisioning a critical psychology of prefigurative politics

Psychological contributions to social movement scholarship have disproportionately concentrated on a "politics of demand", rather than on a "politics of the act", or prefigurative politics. Prefigurative actors, rather than making demands of power-holders, take direct action aimed at creating change in the ‘here and now’ by constructing alternative modes of being and interacting that reflect a given movement’s desired social transformations. Given that the prefigurative process takes place within and between individuals—with aims of changing the macrostructure by altering micro-relations—psychological perspectives are imperative to their understanding. Despite relevant theories and concepts, a psychology of prefiguration has yet to emerge. This theoretical discussion explores several reasons why prefigurative practices have been largely overlooked and at times misunderstood within mainstream social movement scholarship, traces the distinctive dimensions of prefiguration deserving of further (especially psychological) inquiry, and calls for methodological techniques both responsive to the context-driven nature of prefigurative praxis and consistent with the ‘bottom-up’ approach embodied within these unique spaces of resistance. After highlighting important points of disjuncture and possibility within the study of prefiguration, this discussion offers critical questions and methods aimed to envision and invigorate a critical psychology of prefigurative politics.

Ethnography in community psychology: promises and tensions

Community psychology recognizes the need for research methods that illuminate context, culture, diversity, and process. One such method, ethnography, has crossed into multiple disciplines from anthropology, and indeed, community psychologists are becoming community ethnographers. Ethnographic work stands at the intersection of bridging universal questions with the particularities of people and groups bounded in time, geographic location, and social location. Ethnography is thus historical and deeply contextual, enabling a rich, in-depth understanding of communities that is aligned with the values and goals of community psychology. The purpose of this paper is to elucidate the potential of ethnography for community psychology and to encourage its use within the field as a method to capture culture and context, to document process, and to reveal how social change and action occur within and through communities. We discuss the method of ethnography, draw connections to community psychology values and goals, and identify tensions from our experiences doing ethnography. Overall, we assert that ethnography is a method that resonates with community psychology and present this paper as a resource for those interested in using this method in their research or community activism.

Contra a "violência de inexistir": psicologia crítica e diversidade humana

Ancorado numa perspectiva crítica, este artigo propõe uma revisão teórica sobre as abordagens psicológicas em torno da diversidade humana. Num primeiro momento, são examinadas as evoluções conceptuais que a noção de diversidade foi assumindo na psicologia. Posteriormente, elencamos algumas propostas epistemológicas consonantes com a perspectiva crítica adoptada. Por fim, procedemos a uma sistematização de princípios orientadores de uma praxis crítica celebrante da diversidade humana e combativa do que sugerimos ser a "violência de inexistir", representada pela rejeição das inumeráveis realidades subjectivas e relacionais que sempre nos caracterizam na diversidade.

Client-provider relationships in a community health clinic for people who are experiencing homelessness

Recognizing the importance of health-promoting relationships in engaging people who are experiencing homelessness in care, most research on health clinics for homeless persons has involved some recognition of client-provider relationships. However, what has been lacking is the inclusion of a critical analysis of the policy context in which relationships are enacted. In this paper, we question how client-provider relationships are enacted within the culture of community care with people who are experiencing homelessness and how clinic-level and broader social and health policies shape relationships in this context. We explore these questions within a critical theoretical perspective utilizing a critical ethnographic methodology. Data were collected using multiple methods of document review, participant observation, in-depth interviews and focus groups. The participants include both clients at a community health clinic, and all clinic service providers. We explore how clients and providers characterized each other as 'good' or 'bad'. For providers, this served as a means by which they policed behaviours and enforced social norms. The means by which both providers' and clients' negotiated relationships are explored, but this is couched within both local and system-level policies. This study highlights the importance of healthcare providers and clients being involved in broader policy and systemic change.

Moving Canadian governmental policies beyond a focus on individual lifestyle: some insights from complexity and critical theories

This paper explores why Canadian government policies, particularly those related to obesity, are 'stuck' at promoting individual lifestyle change. Key concepts within complexity and critical theories are considered a basis for understanding the continued emphasis on lifestyle factors in spite of strong evidence indicating that a change in the environment and conditions of poverty isare needed to tackle obesity. Opportunities to get 'unstuck' from individual-level lifestyle interventions are also suggested by critical concepts found within these two theories, although getting 'unstuck' will also require cross-sectoral collective action. Our discussion focuses on the Canadian context but will undoubtedly be relevant to other countries, where health promoters and others engage in similar struggles for fundamental government policy change.