I'm just back for a trip to Paris, and I thought of this discussion on
Sunday evening, during a wonderful concert by young German musicians in
Eglise Madeline.
I'm inclined to think that the stance of Martin-baro was rather
different from the type of critical thinking associated with the
Enlightenment. Catholic theology would not see rationalism in an end in
itself.
Martin-Baro would have been very familiar with the seven gifts of the
spirit. The gifts are wisdom, understanding, knowledge, courage, right
judgement, respect, awe and wonder. According to the medieval
philosopher Thomas Aquinas, the first 4 gifts direct the intellect and
the last 3 direct motivations towards relations with God and the
communities of the world.
The stances of Martin Baro seems to demonstrate faith in community, and
belief in the Godly nature of each individual, rather than a critical
stance. I agree with suggestions that community psychology would lose
something if it were reduced to a critical community psychology.
Pax
Mark
-----Original Message-----
From: The UK Community Psychology Discussion List
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jeffrey, Grant
Sent: 10 October 2008 11:29
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [COMMUNITYPSYCHUK] CCP? Really?
Ok - on-side with these points! I agree there are lots of different
versions of criticality and that seems important to me, very much what I
wanted to say. As a value like any other, it must be examined and
re-examined and cannot be held to be other than a belief of a person or
social group. However I want to stand by my point that SOME types of
criticality can indeed be silencing and subjugating and come into
tension with other CP values.
I also think, and was trying to say, we need to pay as much attention to
the ways we practise critical thinking and express our critiques as we
do to our definitions of what we mean by critique. Quite often there
have been trickles of feedback from people on this list indicating that
even here (where we might expect discussion to be supportive and
inclusive as well as critical) they feel that it is a 'scary' or unsafe
place to post messages! I think we need to spend as much time building
our community, expressing shared values and developing community
psychology as a movement distinct from critical psychology (surely we
want develop a psychology of our own that challenges oppression and
individualising practices!), as we do developing powerful critique of
psychology and capitalism - we need to do all of that :-)
If we want to do good then I think we need to stand for something;
exploring, elaborating on and critiquing shared and contested values is
the way to go!
I said my last message that I believe we have a responsibility to be
critical (the word you used David, 'obligation' sounds good to me too).
I hope no one thinks that my argument (that 'criticality' should not
dominate and simply be one of a range of competing cp values, and not in
itself treated as a single practice or as anything more than a value)
implied any criticism of Baro (is it important in this context that he
was a priest?), or support for the gunning down of anyone taking a
critical stance ;-)) (or the gunning down of anyone not taking a
critical stance!). In fact I hope there was nothing in my message that
indicated support for the kind of psychologising that Baro criticised
either! Also, it should be on record that I wasn't saying anyone in the
critical or community psychology movements is advocating cruelty - only
that SOME kinds of criticality (and WAYS of being critical) can be
silencing, cruel and a form of subjugation and might be in tension with
important CP values.
More and more I am coming to feel that this list, which is obviously
serving us well in many regards, is also in some ways quite a difficult,
cold and dry forum for some of the interaction that we want - and that
perhaps the list might also be used to support something more
constructive with more diverse ways of interacting - ideas in another
email!
Signing off for now, Grant
-----Original Message-----
From: The UK Community Psychology Discussion List
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of David Fryer
Sent: 09 October 2008 17:38
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [COMMUNITYPSYCHUK] CCP? Really?
Hi Grant
Just to try to head off misunderstanding . . ..
I had assumed it could be taken for granted on this list that I was not
using 'critical' in the sense of "marked by a tendency to find and call
attention to errors and flaws" (a paper by Fryer,Duckett and Pratt
'Critical Community Psychology: What? Why? and How?' Published in
Clinical Psychology, 38, 39-43, 2004) spells that point out) but in the
sense of 'critical' which draws upon history and philosophy of science,
sociology of knowledge, Marxism, psychoanalysis, discourse analysis,
feminist standpoint research, de-colonising methodology and post
modernism (especially the work of writers like Foucault).
I particularly like Foucault's account of critique in 'So is it
important to think?' Interview conducted by Didier Eribon, Liberation
(30-31 May 1981). In Faubion vol. 3, page 456-7:
"Critique does not consist in saying that things aren't good the way
they are. It consists in seeing what type of assumptions, of familiar
notions, of established, unexamined ways of thinking the accepted
practices are based . . . showing that things are not as obvious as
people believe, making it so that what is taken for granted is no longer
taken for granted. To do criticism is to make harder those acts which
are now too easy".
Suggesting that there is an obligation to be critical in relation to the
psy complex does not seem to me to advocate cruelty! I have never heard
any suggestion that Martin Baro, a priest, was cruel although he argued
that "Psychologising has served, directly or indirectly, to strengthen
the oppressive structures, by drawing attention away from them and
toward individual and subjective factors" (Martin-Baro in Aron and
Corne, 1994:19). On the other hand, I have heard that IMB survived
several assassination attempts but was gunned down in a quadrangle of
his university by right wing troops for his critical stance.
David
-----Original Message-----
From: The UK Community Psychology Discussion List
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jeffrey, Grant
Sent: 09 October 2008 16:32
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [COMMUNITYPSYCHUK] CCP? Really?
Hiya David and all,
I thought I would chip into this really interesting discussion about
criticality and community; since the CP conference the tension between
the two has been buzzing about the front of my brain a bit.
I guess that (for the moment ;-) I do in fact see 'criticality' as one
value amongst many others in community psychology - it seems to me that
there are different ways to be critical, which are more or less useful
at different times and in different contexts.
The kind of criticality that is "marked by a tendency to find and call
attention to errors and flaws" might be useful in some contexts, whereas
"careful evaluation and judgement" might be appropriate in others.
Criticality (in some of its forms in some contexts) will potentially
conflict with other values that might be at home in community
psychology* and to argue that criticality itself is something other than
a competing value (what would it then be like, 'a given', rule that must
not be questioned?) might in itself oppress / subjugate conflicting
values.
Values (beliefs of a person or social group in which they have an
emotional investment?), whenever they are not explicit, will inevitably
be implicit in any organisation, movement, or social group. Contesting,
challenging, and even celebrating values is part of the process of
making them explicit and ensuring that community psychology remains
vibrant and reflective. We need to be critical about criticality too.
But we need to stand for something, have beliefs, and that we need
emotional investment in our work.
It will always be very difficult to say which values are be
'ideologically oppressive' and in what circumstances, as a consequence I
am worried that reifying criticality is in itself risky, missing the key
point that there are different types of criticality and, importantly,
different ways of being critical. There are times when critical
judgement might have to be suspended until we have listened and
understood clearly what other people are saying, and indeed times when
simply listening (relatively!) non-judgementally (or non-critically)
with an open heart might have a place.
Clearly we have a responsibility to think critically, but community
psychology and critical psychology are not the same, and I am not
troubled by the idea that community psychology might actually stand for
things, ways of working, values that sit alongside criticality but are
not dominated by it in every context. We are capable of being reflexive
and thinking critically about our own values without needing to abandon
beliefs and values entirely!
It is not ok to simply say - "it is always good to be critical".
Perhaps there are forms of criticality that can themselves be silencing,
cruel, a form of subjugation?
A tuppence worth at least,
Grant
(*I don't want to suggest values for CP in this wee email ;-) but I do
think that warmth, sensitivity, good-spirit, kindness, friendliness,
inclusiveness, encouragement etc, all values which I am sympathetic to
more or less, are all potentially in tension with SOME types of
criticality and I think it is risky to neglect those tensions or be
careless about the damage criticality can do to community.)
-----Original Message-----
From: The UK Community Psychology Discussion List
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of David Fryer
Sent: 09 October 2008 09:49
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [COMMUNITYPSYCHUK] CCP? Really?
I am not convinced that the critical perspective is just one amongst
many "community psychology's values" and I am not convinced talk of
values is helpful in relation to community psychology (as opposed to in
relation to community psychologists). It can lead to values being
problematically 'prioritised' when they are apparently 'in conflict'
and acritical decisions about which value(s) to privilege are made. If I
were to think in terms of community psychologists' values, for me a
critical dimension would be essential to every value worth holding - I
would not want community psychologists to practice, think or speak in
accordance with any so-called 'value' which was ideologically
oppressive, for example and when two values were apparently in
'conflict' I would expect decisions about how to proceed to require
critical reflection: asking whose interests would be served in what ways
by any particular way of acting, thinking, talking, theorising i.e.
about how it would relate to oppression. David
________________________________________
From: The UK Community Psychology Discussion List
[[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Rebekah Pratt
[[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 08 October 2008 09:55
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [COMMUNITYPSYCHUK] CCP? Really?
Hi there,
I think any confussion is mostly a matter of context really! In Aus/NZ
(where I trained as a community psycholgist myself) there is a clear
distinction between clincial and community psych, both in teaching and
practice. In the US people often undertake joint community AND clinical
training. Here in the UK, as you know, the group of us called community
psychologists is mostly made up of people who practice clinically and
that influences what CP means here. As for that word critical, and
critical community psychology... it is turning into a bit of a bugbear
of mine to be honest!
As a community psychologist I try to build on a sense of a values based
community psychology, of which being critical is PART of. I think we
could reposition the 'critical' perspective to being one of CP's values
(as opposed to being part of a blanket label), one that exists along a
range of tensions with the many other values. I think the idea of
'critical community psych' has diffused some of the core identify of
community psychology in the UK (and maybe opened up a debating ground
where we try to narrow down our range of persepctives as opposed to
broadening our debates to consider a greater variety of positions) I
think it is time to find talk about how we can be critical as one of our
many values, and bring back other values into focus (collaboration,
diversity, context, practice/praxis) that foster respectful interactions
which might just make space for growing knowledge rather than narrowing
it down into one dominant view. Any anyway... isn't the invention of a
new discipline, 'CCP' a sort of patriarchial academic exercise that is
more about owning knowledge that building knowledge?
As critical views are gaining ground I feel we are loosing space to be
able to talk about our practice as community psychologists through being
constantly positioned as critically problematic. For me, my practice is
mostly in a research setting, for many of our colleagues it is in
clinical settings, but there are unlimited ways in which to practice as
a community psychologist. My practice is imperfect, infused with all
the tensions of having a values based view of community psych (including
being critical, which exists in tension with other values that are just
as important to me) and tries to make space for 'doing better' rather
than rest in a state in
inaction waiting for what is considered critically worthwhile. I was
at a
workshop a few months ago where the speaker said, in response to the way
community interventions often fail to address material distress (one of
our major concerns), 'don't let the great become the enemy of the good'.
I think I would like to see a more participative space open up that lets
us talk about that idea.
My point of view is probably some strange hybrid of my Aotearoa/New
Zealand roots and how I've been influenced by being in the UK for a
pretty long time! But I think I would welcome some discussion on where
that concept of critical fits with us!
Rebekah
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For any problems or queries, contact the list moderators: Rebekah Pratt
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--
Academic Excellence at the Heart of Scotland.
The University of Stirling is a charity registered in Scotland, number
SC 011159.
___________________________________
COMMUNITYPSYCHUK - The discussion list for community psychology in the
UK. To unsubscribe or to change your details visit the website:
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For any problems or queries, contact the list moderators: Rebekah Pratt
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Napier University is the best modern university in Scotland* and number
one in Scotland for graduate employability** (*Guardian University Guide
2009) (**HESA 2008)
This message is intended for the addressee(s) only and should not be
read, copied or disclosed to anyone else outwith the University without
the permission of the sender. It is your responsibility to ensure that
this message and any attachments are scanned for viruses or other
defects. Napier University does not accept liability for any loss or
damage which may result from this email or any attachment, or for errors
or omissions arising after it was sent. Email is not a secure medium.
Email entering the University's system is subject to routine monitoring
and filtering by the University. Napier University is a registered
Scottish charity. Registration number SC018373
___________________________________
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UK. To unsubscribe or to change your details visit the website:
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