Critical Community Psychology

Critical Community Psychology is a value-oriented and open program of liberatory «psychological practice», collaborative action and social intervention for the elimination of social injustice, social discrimination and social exclusion of groups that suffer different and multiple forms of oppression. Critical Community Psychology draws from different disciplines but also from experiences of movement actions, militant communities that fought against hegemonic imposition and practices of repression. Its specific academic interests cover the social analysis of the deeper processes that produce social inequality and its ideological environment, the design and organization of interventions that empower the assumption of collective responsibility and political awareness, the elaboration of examples of social activism and militant communities. Its theoretical tools are inspired by critical pedagogy and the work of Freire, historical materialism, critical social and socio-psychological theory as well as liberation theology. The tradition of critical community psychology, as developed in academic centers of Latin America and southern Africa, creates a «paradigm» of the dialectic between theory and practice. Its philosophical assumptions are mainly based on critical realism, phenomenology and pragmatism. The methodological tools of Critical Community Psychology include participatory and collaborative methods of research and action, the connection with art and activism, circular and reflective work when applying qualitative methods of analysis of empirical material.