Emancipatory and Participatory Methodologies in Peace, Critical, and Community Psychology

Abstract

Offering a unique set of case studies that invites readers to question and reimagine the concept of community engagement, this collected work provides an overview and analysis of numerous, creative participatory methods to community engagement designed to improve well-being at both the individual and societal level, and furthermore dislocate dominant discourses. The book offers critical accounts of methodological applications in the global context as illustrations of the laboratory capacities of participatory engagements. It also encourages readers to grapple with the ambiguities, complexities and messiness of adopting participatory research approaches as more than detached formulaic methods of resistance and liberation. In a world where there are enormous disparities in the wealth and health of people, and uneven social recognition of communities and groups across geography and biography, it is increasingly recognized that sustainable justice requires socially engaged research with individuals and communities, combined with emancipator action that resists hegemony and inscribes generative spaces and opportunities towards the well-being and rights of especially the marginalized. This volume thus focuses on community engagement as critical and laboratory praxis. The participatory research examples described in these chapters are meant to encourage researchers, scholars, practitioners and students to question assumed knowledge about community engagement and community engaged research, and to inspire social justice-oriented scholarship. The cases studies and methods portrayed are as varied as the contexts in which they are located. In most of the case studies, the personal is linked to the political with a social justice imperative as participants from marginalized communities engage within power hierarchies, deconstruct power relations, and enact agency. In other instances, the methods are no less participatory but the aim is more focused on inner and outer harmony, psychological well-being, conflict resolution and intergroup reconciliation. In all the case studies, there is a strong emphasis on methods in which community members are at the center of efforts to promote social change. The methods described include group storytelling, community arts, asset mapping, dialogues, creative writing, embroidery, filmmaking, photo voice, "writing back" to power and other means of engaging in laboratory praxis. Ultimately, this volume will provide readers with a deeper understanding of a wide range of emancipator methodologies in peace, critical, and community psychology, and will encourage establishment of an effective social and epistemic justice agenda. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: cover)