To Paul and David
I wanted to say how particularly heartening it is to read your
contributions to this discussion.
David, I think your challenges to the suggestions to move to more benign
places are a good way to go. I think 'being in the community' is probably
one of the single more important ways of trying to see ways of things
being different and of understanding how and why they are. As you say, if
everyone buggers off to better places, what about the people we work with
who are left there?
I have been thinking recently about how a lot can be achieved through
humble, quiet work, with a person in a room, if we at least attempt to
bring the community into the room with us. Working, so to speak, from two
people in a room, outwards. I wonder sometimes whether people who want to
use community psychology approaches shy away from being two people in a
room, because they see it as the anithesis of what they imagine they
should be doing, whilst at the same time, clinical psychologists who use
more mainstream approaches might shy away from using community psychology
approaches because they can't imagine how else it would work without being
two people in the room. Of course, though, we need to know the community
in order to bring it into the room with us. And it takes time to get to
know the community, and naturally, it's easier to know the community if
you live in the one where you work. Returning to the idea about moving to
better places, of course there are constraints for people with family
commitments, and people who already feel like members of their community -
why would they want to leave? It might not be such a great place to work,
but it might be a great place to live. It's making me think how this whole
debate has been so focused on an idea of work, which influences all our
decisions about where to live, as if the world outside of work was not
important - as if work and home, never the twain shall meet.
Paul, I think it's a very important point you make, about people
connecting with each other through their experiences of oppression; for me
this transforms a do-gooder into an equal. However, I know of a few people
in the trade who I predict would balk at this suggestion, and rant about
how dare you comfortable, well-educated, privileged people describe
yourselves as having experienced oppression. And perhaps also some people
can't bear to think of themselves as having ever been oppressed. Anyway,
whatever my fantasies are about these sorts of reactions, it was good to
be reminded of your wonderful aboriginal quote.
I think it is MOST taboo to talk about the oppression which permeates in
those institutions which market themselves as 'critical' and espousing
community psychology principles. Perhaps these are the places where the
silence is most deafening. Your call to break the silence is inspiring,
but I probably need more than inspiration.
Phyl
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