Reflecting on practice: negotiating challenges to ways of working

In this paper I explore some of the issues associated with teaching and researching in the context of dominant/non-dominant group relations. The paper stems from observations, experiences and challenges that I have encountered in researching with indigenous Australians including Aboriginal people from the mainland and Torres Strait Islander people, and teaching undergraduate and post-graduate subjects on cultural diversity. I suggest that guidelines for working in culturally sensitive ways across cultural boundaries are needed and should include issues of power that are implicit in processes of knowledge production (i.e., what we know, how we know, and on whose terms we know) and social identity construction. I also argue that the writing of indigenous authors in Australia, and other contexts, are important resources for promoting critical reflection because it serves to disrupt taken for granted ways of knowing. At a minimum, I suggest, these writings bring into focus the relationships between power and social identities. I focus on the tensions and challenges associated with negotiating the messages conveyed in Aboriginal authors’ writings about self-determination, colonisation and culturally sensitive and transformative practice and research. I locate the reflection within the broader literature base on indigenisation and the development of culturally sensitive psychology. I conclude that engaging in the explication of power associated with social identities in these contexts can be challenging but it is an important part of creating a culturally sensitive psychology

Cultural competence – transforming policy, services, programs and practice

This chapter discusses some of the complex issues surrounding the notion of cultural competence—and the critical need for practitioners to develop knowledge, skills, understandings and attributes to be responsive in diverse cultural settings. The argument for culturally competent mental health practitioners and services is situated within a human rights framework which underpins the principles, standards and practice frameworks intended to facilitate/contribute to the capacity and empowerment of mental health practitioners and clients, families and communities. The National Practice Standards for the Mental Health Workforce 2013 (the practice standards) outline core competencies (including cultural competence) regarded as essential for the mental health workforce: mental health nursing, occupational therapy, psychiatry, psychology and social work. The documented impact of these disciplines/professions on Aboriginal people requires new ways of working that are empowering, respectful and ethical. A case is made for the importance of practitioners providing more culturally inclusive and appropriate care to increase the likelihood that clients and their carers will experience a sense of cultural safety (as well as culturally appropriate services) for Aboriginal clients, their families and communities. The practice standards are complemented by professional guidelines and the National Standards for Mental Health Services 2010 (the service standards). This chapter provides a range of tools and strategies and a Critical Reflection Framework for Analysis to assist students or practitioners to adopt a critical standpoint in order to develop key competencies (knowledge, skills, attitudes and values) to be culturally respectful and effective in their practice in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mental health. Equally important is the need for strategies for self-care and support such as mentoring, journaling, peer support, counselling and engaging in self-reflective, transformative practice.&nbsp

Country and climate: Journeys toward the decolonial option among non-indigenous climate activists

Climate and environmental activism have long grappled with concerns of First Nations’ land, rights, and sovereignty in the Australian settler-colonial context.  However, analyses of environmental campaigns indicate that there are tensions with the realities of  decolonial praxis in the intersubjective exchange among Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. We aimed to respond to and work alongside First Nations’ agendas in this space in by making visible the role of coloniality, interrogating complicity and colonial narcissism, and exploring ways in which non-Indigenous climate activists understand and traverse the decolonial option in order to disrupt hegemonic systems of colonial violence. From the thematic analysis of interviews with five non-Indigenous climate activists from around Australia, four major themes emerged: development of positionality awareness, negotiation of positionality, decolonial imaginings, and a shared journey of (un)learning. These findings illustrate the shifts in subjectivities, the imaginings of decolonial futures, the dilemmas of navigating competing discourses, and the fundamental importance of ongoing learning and unlearning with one another in authentic dialogue.  Considerations for future research and decolonial climate activism actions are explored

Subjetividades y espacio de posibilidades en programas juveniles: Contrarrestar los relatos mayoritarios como cambio social en el contexto australiano

The status quo of many not-for-profit organisations is well-intentioned service provision often coupled with an absence of critical understanding sustained by the restricting nature of neoliberal bureaucracy and funding. In this context, programs aimed at assisting young people from marginalised communities can become mired in individualistic thinking that constrains the space of possibilities for young people through depoliticisation and decontextualization of their realities and thus the kinds of subjectivities available to them. The challenge for the evaluation we discuss in this paper was not only to evaluate the outcomes of the program, but to promote community narratives about the realities for young racialized people in Australia that counter majoritarian stories. We conclude that social change begins within the multidirectional relationships and contact zones of the stakeholders, participants and researchers of youth programs. This means, extending the focus beyond generic youth development and moving toward engaging young people in critical social analysis and empowering them as future social change agents in their communities.El status quo de muchas organizaciones sin ánimo de lucro es la prestación de servicios bien intencionada, a menudo acompañada de una ausencia de comprensión crítica prolongada por la naturaleza restrictiva de la burocracia y la financiación neoliberales. En este contexto, los programas destinados a ayudar a los jóvenes de comunidades marginadas pueden enredarse en un pensamiento individualista que restringe el espacio de posibilidades para los jóvenes a través de la despolitización y descontextualización de sus realidades y, por lo tanto, los tipos de subjetividades disponibles para ellos. El desafío para la evaluación que abordamos en este artículo no fue solo evaluar los resultados del programa, sino también promover narrativas comunitarias sobre las realidades de los jóvenes racializados en Australia que contrarresten los relatos mayoritarios. Concluimos que el cambio social comienza dentro de las relaciones multidireccionales y zonas de contacto de las partes interesadas, participantes e investigadores de programas juveniles. Esto significa extender el enfoque más allá del desarrollo juvenil genérico y avanzar hacia la participación de los jóvenes en el análisis social crítico y empoderarlos como futuros agentes de cambio social en sus comunidades.

Identity and Oppression: Differential Responses to an In-Between Status

Oppression operates at various levels, with varying degrees of negativity, and groups respond in markedly different ways. In this paper, the in-between status of the colored South African group is used to illustrate issues of identity and oppression under the Apartheid system—and differing ways in which oppression was experienced and used. The colored group had many social advantages over Blacks, but were also used to oppress that group. Habituation, accommodation, and relative advantage were identified as dynamics within the broader context of power and privilege that contributed to cultural and psychological marginality and status ambivalence of the coloreds. These processes must be understood within the historical, social, and political context of the community. What is evident from the data is that groups and individuals can take up various positions along a continuum of oppressor—oppressed, depending upon the contexts, time, and social and legal relationships involved in their interactions

Situating and contesting structural violence in community-based research and action

Structural violence refers to social systems as well as the mechanisms through which they produce and normalize marginalization, exclusion, and exploitation. It is intricately tied to cultural violence, that is, systematic assaults on the human dignity and self-worth of individuals and communities. This latter violence operates through culture, language, ideology, and knowledge production in academic disciplines and in scientific canons. Cultural violence serves to justify, legitimize, mask, and naturalize both direct assaults on human beings and systems of oppression and inequality. This special issue highlights new approaches to interrogate the processes and mechanisms between individual and collective suffering and the macrosocial matrices in which the experiences are configured. In this introduction, we argue that an understanding of structural and cultural violence has significant potential for reinvigorating some of the longstanding but often under-engaged goals of community psychology. We explore the challenges facing community psychologists committed to social and transformative change towards wellbeing for all in a global context characterized by gross inequities, thereby establishing the context for this special issue on situating and contesting structural violence in community psychology

Narrating the accumulation of dispossession: Stories of Aboriginal Elders

The lifeworld’s of Aboriginal people and relationships between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people in Australia continue to bear the scars of a colonial past and present. Liberation oriented approaches within psychology have emphasised the role of storytelling and the recovery of historical memory in affirming identity and belonging but also for disrupting wilful ignorance of a history of dispossession in order to transform relationships. In this paper we draw on stories shared as part of an oral history based project and in conversational interviews, to explore the ways in which Aboriginal people have understood oppression in their lives, past and present. Following data analyses, three community narratives were identified that collectively narrated the history, legacy, and continuity of colonial dispossession. These stories are important in showing up the circuits and consequences of dispossession and privilege and can be mobilised to challenge dominant cultural narratives that construct Aboriginal people as needing to move on. As the recovery of historical memory, these symbolic resources also serve to strengthen identity and belonging within Aboriginal communities, thus disrupting the internalisation of oppression