JISCMail - COMMUNITYPSYCHUK Archives

Hi Annie,

Thanks for moving discussion along. In relation to the points you make I think a lot hinges on how one uses the word 'critical.' I am not here using the word in the everyday way. I don't believe being critical necessarily involves being negative - being critical sometimes involves being positive. I don't believe being critical is necessarily a cognitive activity or process - being critical is sometimes a lived activity / process. I don't believe being critical is necessarily reactive i.e. being critical does not require something pre-existing to be critical 'of' - being critical can be proactive / productive.

I do believe being critical necessarily involves: unearthing ideologies buried in social practices, contesting reactionary and affirming progressive ideologies; bringing to the surface whose interests are being promoted by what thought, written, said, and done, and promoting interests progressively; exposing destructive power and subverting it; exploring the 'taken-for-grantedness' of what is the case and making it 'strange'; undermining the 'naturalness' / 'inevitability' of the way things seem to be and showing it to be constructed through collective activity and inactivity and therefore reconstructable; and - most important of all - resisting governmentality (in the Foucauldian sense). Any psychology which is not critical in the above sense is not community psychology in any but trivial senses in my view. Of course these means that, in my view, much of what is passed off as community psychology in journals and textbooks is not community psychology.

The most impressive way of being critical, of which I am aware, is lived praxis which proactively actions ideologically-progressive, oppression-contesting, power-knowledge a.k.a. 'critically right community psychology', perhaps.

To come to your later questions, I believe one can ask of community psychology how it stands in relation to environmental or 'relational' issues but my view would be that any answers to these questions which were not critical in the above sense would not be a community psychological answers.

David

From: The UK Community Psychology Discussion List on behalf of Annie Mitchell
Sent: Tue 3/18/2008 08:29
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: CP Conference 2008 - Edinburgh

Yes, good thoughts; be great to include and extend to those who align themselves directly with a critical psychology stance, and it’s great that Ian is contributing. And I like your panel/ discussion idea – as you say, trying to be non-elitist with it.

David you say that community psychology as a form of critical psychology, and flowing from this is the position that anything that tries to pass for community psychology that is not( deemed as) sufficiently critical requires critique. But is this the only position that we can take between us as community psychologists?

Perhaps we could ask some other questions as well?. Given ( drawn from Carolyn Kagan in part) a set of community psychology values around critique of power, stewardship and an emphasis on relationships rather than individuality, framed negatively I would also ask: what is environmentally wrong with community psychology? what is relationally wrong with community psychology? Or, framed in a way that leans in a different direction: what is environmentally right with community psychology? What is relationally right with community psychology? And then, what is critically right with community psychology – or is that almost a contradiction in terms?

I as recently having a conversation with a friend who an academic accountant. She was telling me about the critical/ radical strand of accountancy ( yes, apparently there is one,). I was speculating that it would be great for the critical sections of various disciplines, to network more powerfully together and she laughingly dismissed my innocence, saying that the critical lot in her field were far too busy arguing among themselves to connect with other critics from other fields. And it set me thinking ( again) about how ironic ( and perhaps disabling a bit too) our internal wranglings are.

And I wondered what it would be like to have a critical person from another field presenting at the conference: critical psychiatry, law, accounting, literature, theatre. What are our commonalities and differences. What can we do together?

Annie

Annie Mitchell

Clinical Director,

Doctorate in Clinical Psychology,

School of Applied Psychosocial Studies,

Faculty of Health and Social Work,

University of Plymouth,

Peninsula Allied Health Collaboration,

Derriford Road,

Plymouth,

Devon

PL6 8BH

Phone Programme Administrators:
Jane Murch, Emma Hellingsworth

01752 233786

Please note I work 3 days per week:

usually Monday, Tuesday & either Wednesday or Thursday.

From: The UK Community Psychology Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of David Fryer
Sent: 17 March 2008 10:36
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: CP Conference 2008 - Edinburgh

Dear Grant and Rebekah,

Thanks for making the UK CP Conference happen.

I think it will be fascinating for us to have Ian Parker as a speaker especially in relation to 'tensions between critical and community psychology'. I personally don't think there are any such tensions because I see community psychology as a form of critical psychology but then I think that a lot of what is called community psychology, especially in northern hemisphere countries like the US and the UK, is not really community psychology at all and requires critique. Anyway that is one of the many debates which will no doubt be triggered by Ian's input at the conference. Maybe we could think about some means to make the most of what is stimulated by Ian's input? Maybe a linked (non elitist) workshop / panel / symposium called something like "What is critically wrong with community psychology?" to try to maximise chances of the issues Ian raises being given time for problematisation / contesting / development etc? Maybe we could also make sure that news of the conference and Ian's input is widely circulated in critical circles as that might encourage more folk who see themselves as critical rather than community people to attend and take part? Just thinking aloud really . . .

Great news anyway.

David

From: The UK Community Psychology Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jeffrey, Grant
Sent: 07 March 2008 12:58
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: CP Conference 2008 - Edinburgh

Hi,

Rebekah and I have worked up a web page for the 2008 conference. If you are keen to stay up to date with plans and developments then you might want to bookmark it, but we will keep the list informed too.

http://www.pacarras.net/CP2008.html

Expect a call for papers a booking form to be available online soon.

Best wishes,

Grant

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