New Challenges for the Psychology of Liberation: Building Frameworks for Social Coexistence

Abstract

(from the chapter) Social coexistence is based on the ties established between the members of a community or country within a framework that allows them to develop creatively, to maintain a balanced connection with both their physical and their psychosocial environment, and to constructively mix with other social actors-including their peers, figures of power, institutions, and the State. The organization of such coexistence depends on the efficiency of social institutions and becomes a reality as long as the people take on the responsibility of establishing effective bonds with their environment, both at the private and the collective level, and of meeting their own needs in a proactive manner, while making proposals to overcome contextual or structural weaknesses. Social coexistence helps people play a prominent role as citizens and participate in the construction of their own reality. It provides a perspective that allows them to experience the dimensions of being part of (i.e., a shared identity with their group, historically and currently), having part of (i.e., shared rights, duties, and a future with that group), and taking part in (i.e., committing, demanding, contributing, and challenging themselves, and connecting the present with the future) (Hernandez, 2002). Unfortunately, social coexistence remains an unfulfilled dream for the Salvadoran society. It is still an unfinished task that showed its worst features in the 1970s and 1980s. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)