Introduction
When invited to sum up the nature of community psychology,
a group of our students described it as ‘a practice for liberation
with responsibilities’ (Duggan et al., 2000).
This is an interesting phrase, suggestive of important underlying
values, social
analyses and community psychological practices. We are going to
suggest that the 21 st Century opens the possibility for community
psychology to contribute to a radical, responsible and responsive
practice for liberation. To date, community – psychology has
not lived up to its liberatory promise.
Prilleltensky and Nelson (1997) note that community psychology literature
(interesting that it is the literature, not the practice!) “…
has paid very little attention to issues such as social action,
advocacy and social change movements, poverty and anti-poverty organisations,
grass roots community organising, human rights, sustainable community
economic development and social policy … (and) … much
greater attention is paid to research methodology than to our work’s
political dimensions and dynamics” Prilleltensky and Nelson
(1997) p.178
It is the work’s political dimensions and dynamics we want
to highlight.
Liberatory practice cannot be achieved by community psychology alone,
and a crucial feature of our analysis will be that for liberation,
alliances within and outside the discipline must be formed. Only
then is there likely to be any chance of a challenge to the prevailing
ideological hegemony (Burton and Kagan, 1996), or indeed for the
realisation of the process of empowerment, embedded in principle
within community psychology (Rappaport, 1981). Only then, too, will
community psychology itself reflect features of, and contribute
to, wider social movements and be able to claim some kind of a progressive
impact (see, for example, Foweraker, 1995; Byrne, 1997; Stephen,
1997).
We will be suggesting a move towards a radical praxis (Freire 1972
a,b; Lather, 1986) wherein action, research (3) and theory are inseparable
and intertwined in complex ways, and immersed in the lives of people
who are marginalised, oppressed and dispossessed. We will reiterate
the need for a reflexive and historical practice that learns from
its past and that challenges not only the social status quo, but
also the status quo within psychology. Martín Baró,
The pre-eminent liberation psychologist of the last century, summed
the task up thus:
…a psychology of liberation requires a prior liberation of
psychology, and that
liberation can only come from a praxis committed to the sufferings
and hopes
of the people …” Martín Baró, p.32
We will suggest a useful model for looking at radical community
psychological praxis is what we call a model of ‘pre-figurative
praxis’. Elsewhere we have used the model as a way of conceptualising
praxis as action research (Burton, 1983; Kagan and Burton, 2000).
Broadening the definition to refer to praxis more generally, prefigurative
praxis “… emphasises the relationship between action research
[… and practice…] and the creation of alternatives to
the existing social order. This combined process of social reform
and […reflection…] enables learning about both the freedom
of movement to create progressive social forms and about the constraints
the present order imposes. It also creates disseminated ‘images
of possibility’ for a different way of ordering social life.”
Kagan and Burton, 2000 p. 73
What we are suggesting is a framework for self-aware social change,
with an
emphasis on value based, participatory work: one that is pragmatic
and reflexive,
whilst not wedded to any particular orthodoxy of method.
In developing the model, we will outline key aspects of the social
context at the turn of the Century; elements of a radical community
psychological praxis; strategies for intervention; and some of the
tensions of working within and against the discipline of psychology.
3 We do not generally find the distinction between
action and research a useful one. However, we are moving towards
the view that whilst not all action is research, all research could
and should be action.
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