Positive community relations: Border crossings and repositioning the 'other'

Abstract

Positive psychology examines factors that enable individuals, organisations and communities to develop, be empowered, become self-determining and thrive. Positive community relations, however, are the least developed area of positive psychology. This chapter presents a case study that illustrates how positive community relations can be created, overcoming complex real and symbolic boundaries through the development of joint activities that bring disparate groups together. Through the establishment of an NGO-sponsored in-school programme teaching local Indigenous languages to primary school children, participants including school staff, primary students, Indigenous female elders, Indigenous high-school students and university pre-service secondary teachers, created spaces that allowed new relationships to form. This process led to a repositioning of themselves in relation to each other. The positive relationships and mutual benefits participants created during the programme illustrate how positive community relations can be forged within communities long beset with patterns of differentiated power and exclusion.