A Sense of Community: Community & Community Psychology

Image source: Psychologists for Social Change 

My description of Community became more cohesive than the one I offered at the beginning of our class. Although I have gained some knowledge about defining community and community-engaged work through my previous course, I appreciate the way this class was conducted by focusing not only on exploring the definition and never-ending meaning of community but also how community psychologists have been shaping the way we understand communities. When describing Community at the beginning of the semester, I stated that it [is] ‘a group of people sharing common attitudes and/or goals.’ Then, I added some historical background, followed by a brief representation and concept of community within the community psychology framework of seeking social justice, transformation, and social action. However, when referring to a community in community social psychology, Nelson and Prilleltensky (2010) concentrate on the sense of community and social capita.

Having a sense of community refers to our needs for affiliation in times of grief or loneliness, needs for sharing positive experiences, and the needs for having emotional connections; it can be measured and discussed at the group or neighborhood level (Nelson and Prilleltensky, 2010). Montero and Sonn (2016) state that the main link with community psychology has been “through work with disadvantaged people and communities, helping in the gaining of critical consciousness, unmasking and challenging dominant ideology, in dialogue with people’s awakening critical voices” (pp. 163).
In Audre Lorde’s book, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, the author recounts how not having a sense of community nor support system, on top of being a victim of systematic oppression shaped her life. “Most Black lesbians were closeted, correctly recognizing the Black community’s lack of interest in our position, as well as the many more immediate threats to our survival as Black people in a racist society. It was hard enough to be Black, female, and gay” (pp. 224). Community psychologists and communities, in general, should practice promoting a sense of community to the communities we are supporting, especially minorities who have been historically marginalized and ridiculed by their skin color or ethnicity, accent, sexual orientation, gender, religious or spiritual views, and social status. By doing so, we can positively affect and mobilize their residents and inspire others to adopt or vie this framework or method.

Another example on community and sense of belonging is offered in Gonzalez (2016) book, Lives in Limbo: Undocumented and Coming of Age in America. Gonzales tells the story of undocumented college-goers who faced a crude reality of the so-called ‘American Dream.’ These undocumented college students were being discriminated and embarrassed not only by other students but also college staff. Gonzales presents the story of a young lady who when being asked about her legal status, an administrative staff asked, “How much did you pay for the coyote to come over here?” (pp. 163). This embarrassment led the young lady to put college aside for a full year. Upon her return and thank staff who encouraged others to promote a sense of community, belonging and inclusion, Gonzales states that it enabled many students to “combat the damaging stigma” and to become more self-confident in their claims of affiliation and belonging (pp. 174).

Building Social Capita: My understanding of Community-engaged Work

To successfully participate in community-engaged work, have learned that it is important to have participation from the community were planning to work with. Their voices and input matter and great outcomes can arise when we work together. Participating in community-engage work also helps us build or strengthen social capita, which is known as collective resources consisting in social networks, mutual aid or civic participation, norms of reciprocity, trustworthiness, and actions to improve the common good (Nelson and Prilleltensky, 2010; Putman and Feldstein, 2003). An example of how impactful promoting community empowerment and engagement can be, Putman and Feldstein (2003) relates how a community sat down together to discuss their issues on the wellbeing of their neighborhood, and then offered possible solutions that led to the creation of community gardens, arts displays, and a playground for the children in the community.

To better address communities, we have learned that we ought to emerge in community-engage work by focusing on the community strengths instead of only addressing their issues and needs.  Nelson and Prilleltensky (2010) encourage their readers to focus on community strengths rather than ‘deficits’ because, “it enables people to build upon their pre-existing resources, capacities, and talents” (pp. 6). In order to do community-engaged work, we should employ a desire-based framework as an ‘antidote’ for the poisonous research that brings down communities or frames them as ‘broken and conquered’ (Tuck, 2009). Tuck (2009) states that by having a desire-based approach, we would understand “complexity, contradiction, and self-determination of lived lives” (pp. 416).

Furthermore, what I now understand by community-engage work is working for and with communities while practicing the reexamination of our own’s identity and privileges. This reexamination process is called reflexivity which is used as a tool needed to ‘unpack privilege,’ and is known as the ability to reflect on the past and the future to impact the future, and transcend the present (Nelson and Prilleltensky, 2010; Pillow, 2003). Critical reflexivity, in the same way, transcend the individual level self-awareness, requiring constant evaluating the ways we contribute to both liberation and oppression by being devoted to transformative research and action (Reyes & Sonn, 2011).

Overall, I would like to conclude by quoting Reyes and Sonn (2011), “We believe community psychology can and should make important contributions to the study of cultural matters by revealing and addressing the experiential intersections between culture, power, and empowerment in everyday contexts.”

Annotated Bibliography

Nelson, G., Prilleltensky, I., (2010). Community Psychology: In Pursuit of Liberation and Well-Being (2nd ed.). Palgrave MacMillian. New York.

I read this book in my preview semester. The authors, Geoffrey Nelson, and Isaac Prilleltensky focus on the history of foundations, issues, values, interventions, and accountability of Community Psychology. Throughout the book, the term Community Psychology is being addressed as a tool for action for issues such as marginalization, globalization, poverty, colonization, racism, immigration, gender, power and privilege, ableism, and disadvantaged children, to mention a few. Nelson and Prilleltensky describe this book as their journey and work in progress and provide their readers with an overview or in-depth introduction of Community Psychology from critical perspectives to praxis as a transformative action. I chose this book because it relates to most of the articles we have read during this semester. Especially, to the ones focusing on damage-based research vs. desire-based framework.

Gonzales, R. G., (2016). Lives in Limbo: Undocumented and Coming Age in America. University of California Press, 149-175.

Lives in Limbo is defined as “An important examination of the devastating consequences of ‘illegality’ on our young people” (Junot Diaz). Each chapter illustrates stories of struggles versus perseverance, as well as the injustices faced by Latinos and Latinas who come to the United States ‘illegally.’ In the example I used, I’m telling the story on incoming college students who were also undocumented. “College-Goers: Managing the Distance between Aspirations and Reality” relates how this population face discrimination, isolation, hardships, and lack of sense of community and belonging when deciding to pursue a higher education. These students also faced embarrassment through the college financial and administrative departments. For them, college not only was a path to success and making their family proud, but one of desolation, struggles, and disappointments.

Lorde, A. (1982). Zami: A New Spelling of My Name. Crossing Press. New York.

Lorde’s memoir, or biomythography (the combination of biography, myth, and history in a narrative form), relates the childhood, adolescence and young adulthood of Audre Lorde. This book provides historical context on racism, injustice, systematic oppression, segregation, as well as gender identity in a way that evokes a wide range of emotions (sad, anger, love, intrigue, disgusts, and so forth) from the readers. From her relationship with her mother to her friends, and her first love, Lorde learns about herself, her positionality and limited privileges, as she becomes more self-confident and more aware of the power of her voice as a Black, lesbian woman.

Montero, M., Sonn, C. C., and Burton, M. (2017). Community psychology and liberation            Psychology: A creative synergy for an ethical and transformative praxis. In M. A. Bond, I. Serrano-García, and C. B. Keys (Eds), APA Handbook of Community Psychology: Vol. 1. Theoretical foundations, core concepts, and emerging challenges, (pp. 149-167). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Montero, et. al. discusses the development of liberation across nations. Produced by victims of oppression, the authors discuss how psychologists work towards liberation by constructing, engaging, and promoting liberated consciousness as a new way to help those who have overcome or have been experiencing oppression, including their allies or supporters. By working with disadvantaged people and communities via opportunities for the practice of critical consciousness, Montero relates that this adds to the awakening of critical voices as well as exposing and challenging dominant ideologies.

Pillow, W. (2003). Confession, catharsis, or cure? Rethinking the uses of reflexivity as a methodological power in qualitative research. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 16(2), 175–196.

            In this article, Pillow thoroughly explains the role of reflexivity as a methodological tool that intersects with debates and questions surrounding representation and legitimization in qualitative research. First, she breaks down the definition of reflexivity by the method that requires the researcher to be critically conscious or self-aware of one’s self-location or identity, position, and interests because they could influence all stages of the research process. Pillow then discusses the problematics of four common trends in present-day uses of reflexivity:

·       Reflexivity as recognition of self: the ability of the researchers to know their own subjectivity and to make this bias known to the reader through exposé is partial and limiting.

·       Reflexivity as recognition of other: the ability to reflexively deliberate the issues of representation as a privileged space from which to work.

·       Reflexivity as truth: to continue to position the researcher’s own need and longing for “truth” as their main goal.

·       Reflexivity as transcendence: the idea that, through reflexivity, we can transcend our own bias and cultural background in a way that release us from the weight of (mis)representations.

Putnam, R. and Feldstein, L (2004). Better Together: Restoring the American Community. Simon and Schuster Paperback edition. New York. 78-79.

This book provides stories, insights, and approaches for social activism, community mobilization, community revitalization, and ‘nesting.’ Putnam and Feldstein tell a handful of stories from around the US, highlighting the cultivation of networks, the power of our voices, community empowerment, and involvement, as well as the creation of opportunities for community development. I chose to talk about the story told in Chapter 4, “The Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative.” The community went door by door introducing themselves, as they work on their mutual understanding. Despite having differences (race, age, abilities, and religion), this community adopts the ‘nesting’ method of bridging and bonding together for the greater good. Just like their community leader, Julio Henriquez stated, “…if you live in a neighborhood where people care about each other, you can recover from anything” (pp. 86).

Reyes Cruz, M. Sonn, C. C. (2011). (De)colonizing culture in community psychology: Reflections from critical social science. American Journal of Community Psychology, 47(1-2), 203–14.

In their pursuit of decolonizing culture in community psychology, Reyes and Sonn address culture as being historically attached to issues of oppression, power, and privilege. The authors claim that community psychologists must opt for critical reflection and be committed to their departure from colonizing methods to the marginalized (those who they called ‘others’ and ‘othering’). From a decolonizing point-of-view, Reyes and Sonn provide opportunities or insights to alternatives methodologies to engage with community research, teaching, and participation. By choosing to de-centering the dominance of Western, the author foresaw new chances to involve advanced practices to attain social justice and transformative research in order to provide social transformation.

Tuck, E. (2009). Suspending damage: A letter to communities. Harvard Educational Review, 79(3), 409–428.

In this open letter, Tuck encourages communities, educators and researchers to rethink, reframe and critically examine the ways [we] tell the stories of communities and individuals, especially when [we] fall into the ‘damaged-framework’ of portraying communities as ‘broken.’

·       Damage-centered research: Tuck describe this framework as a research that operates from a theory of change that establishes harm or injury in order to achieve reparation. Using more than 400 years of research made in the United States, as an example, many researchers have been known for choosing damage-centered research, sometimes even unintentionally, when exploring and exploiting Native lands, as well as when referring to colonization and domination to explain “contemporary brokenness” (low literary, poor health, and poverty). Tuck claims that this kind of research operates with a flawed theory of change, which is often used as a way to influence the readers and stakeholders to provide more resources for marginalized communities yet simultaneously reinforces a one-dimensional notion of these people as depleted, ruined, and hopeless.

·       Desire-based framework. Tuck encourage [us] to use this method as an antidote to damage-centered research that frameworks communities as damaged. She states that educational researches ought to foresee alternative theories of change, and that [we] must position ourselves differently, both from the ways we did traditionally and under colonial domination (also known as regeneration), and to begin “shifting the discourse away from damage and toward desire and complexity.”