Cinzia Albanesi

Call for papers | Symposium on Community, Psychology and Climate Justice

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5-7 June 2023, Johannesburg, South Africa

Hosted by the University of Johannesburg, University of Cincinnati, and York St. John University

The world is experiencing increasing global heating and adverse weather patterns, with associated biodiversity loss, natural disasters, displacement, migration, and negative health impacts. Psychologists, however, have been somewhat slow to acknowledge how climate change intersects with historical and contemporary injustices, including colonisation, racism, environmental health disparities, human rights violations, sexism, migration, and extractivism, to name a few. Psychologists have tended to downplay the politics of climate justice, too often adopting an apolitical stance that focuses on individual agency, attitude shifts, behaviour change and education. An additional problem is that writings and voices of marginalised groups are underrepresented in current climate psychology scholarship. There is also an underrepresentation of interdisciplinary work with disciplines such as law, peace and conflict studies, community development, migration, governance and public health.

How can psychologists become inclusive of movements and scholarship seeking structural and political reform, climate justice, racial and gender equity, reparations, and meaningful representation of marginalised groups? How can psychologists continue to work on healing and adaption while recognising upstream mitigation and socio-political reform? How can psychologists grapple with the growing inequities and problems within climate movements? How can psychologists contribute to movements that strengthen decolonised, community-oriented, critical and political approaches to the climate emergency? How can psychologists foster meaningful and conscientised solidarity in the fight for climate justice? How do we close the gap between scholarship and climate movements? What is the role of scientific evidence in climate justice struggles? How can we use politically engaged methodologies such as participatory, decolonising, and indigenous approaches in pursuing climate justice?

There is a growing interest by psychologists in these and other questions. Several recent publications and special issues have focused on a more politicised role for psychology and climate justice. These include, but are not limited to, community psychology and climate change, communities reclaiming power in relation to climate change, the role of justice in climate psychology, and inclusivity of marginalised scholarship in the climate emergency. These writings have focused on deepening the theoretical underpinnings of climate psychology, inter and trans-disciplinary approaches to climate justice, community mobilisation and intervention, literary and arts-based interventions, critical methodologies, marginalised youth activism, and migration. There is, however, much work to do.

This symposium focuses on psychology and climate justice through the lens of community. Communities worldwide are on the frontlines of resistance against the detrimental impacts of large-scale resource developments, deleterious climate change consequences, land dispossession, toxic contamination, and other climate and environmental injustice issues. These and other environmental injustices disproportionately impact those living on societies’ margins, and vulnerability is often rooted in histories of colonial violence and its reproduction in today’s unjust social arrangements. Resisting communities are also fighting for the universal right to a healthy environment for current and future generations, including a liveable climate, participation and fair treatment within environmental decisions, and the equitable distribution of environmental goods and harms. Additionally, indigenous environmental justice struggles often centre land and seek to restitute what has been made destitute through colonial violence. Thus, environmental justice struggles are not only against environmental violence but, importantly, for the flourishing of all life.

We invite theoretical, case studies, original research, critical reviews, and other contributions that may complement this theme. We will also include a broader political psychology analysis that helps frame environmental justice issues. The call is not limited to community psychology; we welcome any theoretical orientation (political, liberation, critical, feminist, indigenous and social psychology) with a community lens. We are particularly interested in the papers that focus on the following:

  • Deepening critical community and psychology theory in climate justice
  • Gender, queer theory and climate justice
  • History, climate justice and psychology
  • Race and racism
  • Intersectionality and climate justice
  • Disability and climate justice
  • Inter and transdisciplinary approaches
  • Critical conscientisation and climate justice
  • Civic monitoring
  • Allyship
  • Cohesion, connectedness and mobilisation
  • Identity and solidarities
  • Decolonisation
  • Youth activism, particularly among marginalised groups
  • Literary and visual arts
  • Participatory methodologies
  • Ethics and climate justice
  • Critiques of individualism and behaviour change
  • Critical mental health and the climate emergency
  • Representation and climate reporting
  • Conservation and justice

Please submit extended abstracts of no more than 800 words covering one more of the above topics. The closing date for abstract submissions is 30 March 2023. Please email abstract submissions to Brendon Barnes bbarnes@uj.ac.za.The hybrid symposium will take place at the University of Johannesburg from 5-7 June 2023, and include a face-to-face (at the University of Johannesburg) or an online option. Selected papers will be invited to submit a chapter to an edited collection after the symposium.

Nikolay Mihaylov (Bulgaria)

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What attracted you to community psychology?

I had been interested in psychology more generally as a way of changing the world for the better by changing people for the better (it does sound a little messianic, hopefully youthful idealism is a good enough excuse). I enrolled in a BA in Psychology and explored psychotherapy as a practice that helps people improve their lives. During my studies I engaged in student activism. Studying psychology and doing organizing on behalf of a voiceless community led me to the realization that change is more feasible and perhaps more meaningful when it is planned and performed at a group level, not the individual level of therapy. As a student in a peripheral country (Bulgaria), I was not aware of community psychology; I was aware of social psychology as the “change” variety of psychology – it dealt with attitudes, social influence, conflict and cohesion. I would read Aronson’s The Social Animal and be thrilled by his description of jigsaw groups overcoming prejudice and the experiments on making people care more about the environment. Eventually I set myself a goal to get into a PhD program in Social Psychology in the United States (where all these great textbooks were coming from). I applied through the Fulbright Commission in Bulgaria and won the scholarship. The Commission facilitates and funds applying and studying in the US. I filled in their forms, described in my personal statements how much I wanted to do social-change oriented research and gave evidence from my experience as an activist. The result – I was not accepted anywhere. The Commission was quite dismayed with the US universities not accepting a Fulbrighter. I (and obviously Fulbright) did not know that social psychology in 2010 had moved quite far from Aronson’s textbooks (if it ever were there anyway). This discouraging situation turned for the better when the Commission hooked me up with Ron Harvey, a US student who was doing Fulbright research in Bulgaria. He happened to be a PhD student in community psychology (CP).

When we met his first words were: “I read your statement. What you are talking about is community psychology, not social psychology.” And then he told me about action research, community change, context, prevention and all the other ideas we like so much about the CP approach to social issues. It all seemed to fit great with my interests, my experiences and my goals. Eventually I went to DePaul University in Chicago, Ron’s home program in CP, on a Fulbright scholarship for one year as a non-degree student. From there I was able to obtain first-hand knowledge of our field, get the connections and the experience to apply to a full-time Ph.D. program. The gap between the Bulgarian academia and the US PhD programs is really big and I had to be both lucky and strategic to jump it.

What makes community psychology special for you?

The most important thing about CP for me would be that it is a set of social technologies that can be used by ordinary people, “the” people. Most knowledge, most technologies are capitalized on by those who already have power – corporations and state power. Knowledge is (more) power to them. If we looked at social psychology, for example, we would see that almost all its research and the knowledge it produced are being used by big business to control its workforce and its consumers (and to some extent by the corporate-owned state as well). And there is some “trickle-down science” for the self-help-oriented upper middle class. CP, on the other hand, is designed to work with and involve people in research that they can use for their own good, often against that control from above.

Other features of CP complement or make possible this liberatory potential. CP is action oriented, which is very motivating for both the researchers and the community participants – the interactive process of research is stimulating, and the practical, grounded goals are constant positive feedback to our efforts. CP is also relatively cheap and easy to apply in terms of money and materials. No labs, no sophisticated equipment is necessary. That was one of my personal reasons to enroll in a CP Ph.D. program – I could transfer my knowledge back to Bulgaria even as a psychologist-errant. A CP training also allows for very versatile jobs in and out of academia. On a personal level CP is also attractive in giving practitioners the option to work by their avowed values, self-express through their work, which is rare in a positivist science paradigm.

Please tell us about an event that was formative for your engagement with community psychology.

There was no single event – it was rather a gradual journey and realization. A very important experience was my engagement in student activism in my first years of the university. I felt the exhilaration of making your voice heard and changing reality through collective action; I also experienced solidarity and camaraderie; and I also encountered the frustrations and dilemmas of trying to make other people become active, or “free”. One important book I read at that time was Saul Alinsky’s biography (Let Them Call Me a Rebel) – it gave me a framework to think about collective action and empowerment – community organizing. The final step for me was to figure out how to engage with social change. Being a person of analytics and words, with some knack for personal interaction, I decided to go for the research route. And that led me to the application for US Ph.D. programs.

How can community psychology contribute to the debates/work regarding environmental justice and climate change?

First of all, with its participatory community-based action research approach, CP can help communities living at the fringes of world capitalism engage in the global debate about climate change and nature destruction. Even the green transition is in reality based on further exploitation of local communities in the resource bowels and dumping grounds of the world economy. CP produces and publicizes research that can make the extraction activities, the climate change effects and the local resistance visible. As CP involves communities as equals (ideally), the voices of these communities can partake in the debate around environmental justice directly, often circumventing the oppressive development-bent local corporate state. Now, the problem here would be getting those voices and experience out of our journals (where they do get published) into the public sphere and politics.

CP is also well-equipped to facilitate the production of local knowledge, which is always crucial for the particular implementation of an exploitative technology. In other words, if local people can produce evidence on the side effects, harms and risks from the local application of a “modern” technology, they are in a much better position to oppose it. Who else is more knowledgeable of the local context than the people who inhabit it? With its pragmatic approach to research – mixed-methods, goal-driven, participatory – CP can be very helpful in making that knowledge explicit and applicable in policy-making debates.

Community psychologists as experts can also contribute to the expertise conflicts around development. Most environmental issues have some complex technology-nature interaction at their heart. This makes the participation of experts in the conflict about development very likely. Usually, experts are paid to explain away the risks and certify the benefits of techno-industrial development. They act as a shield for political-economical decisions and close off the debates by limiting them to an expert discourse. It is very difficult for lay people to defend their interests in legitimate, expert knowledge terms. Community psychologists can help local people demystify expert knowledge, use research competently and even become experts themselves.

A significant question remains about the generalization of local knowledge and lessons from resistance: How can local efforts cross-pollinate and even grow to something global? Do we bring knowledge in when we go into a community? Do we facilitate direct local-to-local exchange? Do we write books on local organizing? What else?

What are some challenges associated with being a community psychologist in Bulgaria?

The greatest challenges come from the fact that CP is unknown in Bulgaria and there are very few (probably almost none) community psychologists. Sciences in Bulgaria are very compartmentalized and formalized, so not having a clear identity or definition of the field creates extra issues. When I came back to Bulgaria with my Ph.D., I had to go through a process of certification of my credentials by a public (state-run) agency. I was officially pronounced a sociologist because this was the box where my multidisciplinary dissertation seemed to fit best. From this follows that I can develop my career in universities as a sociologist – either in Sociology or in some more multi-disciplinary department such as Public Health. Funding, hiring, grants depend on that box you are put in.

Another issue with the outlandishness of CP is that it is difficult to find colleagues to work and partner with. The academia here is very conservative in the sense that university scholars avoid value-driven research and politically controversial topics. This is partly a remnant from positivism, but also the public universities are strongly dependent on subsidies from the national government so critical research or research-based advocacy is awkward. Even conclusions from research that is by design focused on public policies (like in public health) is coached in abstract and cautious terms and is not widely publicized.

One interesting thing I have encountered is how activists regard experts (see my previous response). When I studied the anti-fracking movement in Bulgaria, I was also a fringe participant in the actions. Nobody from the activists would regard me as an authority on organizing, and ask me about organizing techniques, tools. Everyone must prove themselves as an activist and that would be the only authority recognized. This was due to the activists’ meanings around organizing – that it should be “natural” and spontaneous, not formalized and institution-like. And there was an interesting discrimination among experts in the movement. To believe experts, you need to be sure they are autonomous – not mouthpieces. Therefore, the trustworthy expert is the one who speaks spontaneously as a citizen, and not the one that speaks as a professional when they are hired to speak on an issue. Only the citizen-expert was considered autonomous. You need to participate in the action to prove you are speaking “the truth”.

A song that, for you, symbolizes what CP is about.

That would be El Pueblo Unido and/or We Shall Overcome. The hope that when we unite we will create the good life.

Dora Rebelo (Portugal)

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How were you attracted to community psychology?

I started my career as a systemic psychologist, but already looking into community-based projects as my main target of attention. I was attracted by the possibility to build collective projects, particularly with communities that were oppressed by the state. I started working as a field psychologist in peripheral neighborhoods in the outskirts of Lisbon, Portugal, where a majority of migrants and ethnic minorities lived, withdrawn from the privileges of the city center. I worked at a project that aimed at breaking the social barriers for youth that were living in these neighborhoods, finding new opportunities for social inclusion and the promotion of diversity. These were mainly young people racialized as migrants (although the vast majority were in fact Portuguese, of either African or Roma descendance). I was impressed with the effects of their spatial segregation from the urban areas, and how the cycle of exclusion perpetuated a series of stereotypes and mistrust between these communities and the so called “Portuguese community”, which was mainly self-perceived as white. I thought of community psychology as a means to innovate and co-create projects of inclusion that made sense for the people we aimed at “including”.

Any formative experiences for your engagement with community psychology?

I had two highly formative engagements. First, my time at the Federation of Roma Associations in Catalunya (FAGIC- Federació de Associacions Gitanes de Catalunya). I was employed by the Federation as a project coordinator, and supported Roma communities to apply for European funding that could suit their needs and support their projects. The Federation was totally run by Roma people, advised by a committee of elders, and they held relevant positions in municipalities, to forward the access of Roma people to basic services (education, transportation, health, etc). My time at FAGIC was highly formative in what involves witnessing the effects of the decision-making powers in marginalized communities. Having a “space at the table” promoted FAGIC as a stakeholder in relevant decisions usually taken without the advice of the communities, which facilitated city services, like healthcare centers, to receive relevant training to better serve Roma people and reduce the initial obstacles identified by community members themselves.

 The second highly formative engagement was at the Roberto Clemente Center, in New York, a community-based clinic initially created by Puerto-Rican psychologists, to better serve the mental health needs and social inclusion of Caribbean communities. During this engagement I was supervised and trained by highly-skilled community psychologists from the region, who helped me to develop intercultural dialogue and more thoughtful clinical skills. I was rendered convinced that communities are the best catalyzers of scientific advancements in psychology, working with their own expertise and self-awareness.

What is special about community psychology?

 I believe community psychology can be useful in bringing awareness to new knowledges, built from grassroots participatory action-research. It can bridge the gap between communities and mainstream academia/mainstream psychology, by simplifying well-being tools and language. When truly democratic, community psychology can be particularly relevant in raising the political participation and the struggles for equity and human rights. Furthermore, the focus on prevention and on social justice, combined with the openness to interdisciplinary collaborations, can go a long way in promoting and designing policy change, civic participation and solidarity.

How might community psychology be more influential at policy level in Europe?

 I have been inspired, in the last years, while my doctorate research lasted, by european solidarians. I met many common people, during my fieldwork in Europe, who were transformed by what researchers refer to as “the event of the encounter”. By “the encounter” I mean the solidarity actions with people on the move, usually people racialized as migrants. Motivated by moral or political positionalities (e.g. “lives are more important than borders”), these solidarians have been engaged in an intentional resistance to the political orientations taken by EU governments around migration. The perception of structural inequalities has intensified the flow of struggles and social movements, producing these community solidarity dynamics between people, alongside the new hostilities and animosities that have been shaping EU’s reactions to migrants. I think community psychology can be determinant in amplifying these natural and informal solidarity systems, arranged around the needs and injustices faced by people on the move. The harshening of the European border regime has forced asylum seekers to endure precarious living circumstances and limited their ability to use their agency and regain control over their lives. By legitimizing and supporting the solidarity networks that offer safety and resistance to people on the move, community psychology can become a voice of resistance and a partner for migrant communities that want to impact policy change.

A piece of advice for aspiring community psychologists?

I recommend that the engagements with the communities are made in the spirit of the liberation theories, recognizing the flaws of mainstream psychology and daring to go one step further in taking action for social injustices, as true allies, rather than “experts”. An interplay between community psychologists and the communities they work with needs to involve a lot of unthinking, engaging and renovating knowledge. One needs to be prepared to also question (and even “diagnose”) the institutions, rather than focusing on the “issues” presented as dysfunctional or pathological. Displaced communities in the world are giving us a chance to improve our discipline, and we should take it, by getting more deeply involved in their social struggles.

Finally, a song? One that symbolizes what community psychology is about for you?

Patti Smith, “People Have The Power”, 1988

Call for papers: Climate change and environmental activism 

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Special Issue Call for Papers, JSSE-Journal of Social Sciences Education

Environmental activism about climate change has been at the core of social movements. Across the globe, activists engaged in demonstrations, organised strikes, occupied buildings of corporations and, more recently, performed targeted civil disobedience actions. Some of these activists are engaged in transnational organisations that share, not only slogans (‘there is no planet B’) and information, but also educate one another on the use of online and offline strategies. More notably than before, many of these movements involve and are led by children and young people, in a clear demonstration of their political agency – and their concerns about the future.

While this raises important questions about the role of schools and education in this existential crisis, the complexity of the situation is enhanced by other factors. The actions of governments and politicians have been erratic. For some, climate change is still debatable, ideological and ‘fake news’. For others, promoting community resilience in the face of climate change is a new priority, but one that coexists with the maintenance of a carbon-based economy. As there are growing signs of the severe consequences of the rise in the planet’s warming, there are also signs of the lack of serious policy regarding climate change. Furthermore, it seems that the climate challenge is one of these new issues that drive political polarisation and structure the culture wars about the curriculum and the role of (socio-)scientific knowledge in school and society in general.

On the other hand, the intensity of environmental injustice is immense and works across other layers of inequality: intergenerational, as many of these changes will dramatically affect future generations; geographical since the countries most troubled by climate change are not those who are contributing the most to global warming; colonialism, given the historical continuity of patterns of exploitation, displacement and extractivism; as well as the intersection with existing economic, gender, race and disability inequalities.

This special issue welcomes papers that address climate change and environmental activism from this broad perspective, focusing on political, social and economic education, its policies, goals, institutions, practices and challenges. This includes discussions of the civic and political identities and experiences of climate change activists, but also on the political controversies and debates around climate change. It also welcomes papers that address how formal and non-formal education for climate change can play a role in generating relevant knowledge, dispositions and actions, or in creating community resilience towards climate change. 

  • How does engagement with climate change activism influence participants’ civic and political agency and empowerment?
  • How are climate change controversies approached in educational settings and social and traditional media?
  • In what ways does climate change anxiety interfere with individual and community resilience about climate change regarding forms of dealing with it in diverse educational contexts?
  • In what forms are transnational and global activism taken up in educational contexts?
  • What are the effects of climate change formal and non-formal education in participants and communities? How are the knowledge and rationalities that have so far been deemed relevant in socio-scientific education being challenged, contested and changed?
  • Which transformative approaches to social science education are being further developed and how are these linked to the global education agenda setting, for example of UNESCO?
  • How does environmental injustice intersect with other layers of inequality and how is this interplay addressed in education?
  • How are minoritized groups and communities engaging in climate activism? How are links with capitalism, colonialism and globalisation explored in educational approaches to climate change?

Deadline for manuscript submission: March 15, 2023.

Editors: Maria Fernandes-Jesus, Andrea Szukala, Isabel Menezes.

More info HERE.

Call for papers: Community Psychology in the face of the climate crisis: What contributions?

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Special issue call for papers: PSICOLOGIA DI COMUNITA’ (Community Psychology Italian Journal)

Community Psychology in the face of the climate crisis: What contributions?

Climate change is long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns caused by chemical changes in the Earth’s atmosphere and in land use. Scientists agree not only on the reality of climate change, but also on the responsibility of human activities in determining it. Scientists also largely agree on the consequences: not only rising seas, declining biodiversity, extreme weather events, changes in agricultural productivity (e.g., IPCC Sixth Report), but also related impacts on migration, human health, conflicts related to resource scarcity, etc.

This scenario makes it even more necessary to strive towards the goals of the 2030 Agenda and makes the interconnectedness earth and human experience and action even more evident. Fighting against climate change is itself a goal (SDG13) of the 2030 Agenda, but it is clearly linked to reducing inequalities (SDG10); organising safe, resilient and sustainable communities and cities (SDG11); implementing sustainable production and consumption patterns (SDG12); protecting the oceans and seas and protecting the terrestrial ecosystem (SDG14 and 15); promoting peaceful societies (SDG16); and building partnerships that promote the achievement of the goals themselves (SDG17).

Achieving these goals will require addressing multiple challenges and capabilities. In particular, it is quite apparent that the negative impacts of the climate crisis on people’s lives in terms of well-being, decision-making, and disruption of individual, family, and whole community lives are increasingly important. While the climate crisis affects all of humanity, it does not affect all people in the same way. Indeed, it is evident that this crisis has exacerbated global inequalities between North and South and between classes and genders, making even more compelling the need for redistribution of power and climate justice, which is inseparable from social justice.

There are many varied skills that derive from Psychology and are useful in addressing this crisis and its effects. This has resulted in recent years in the rise of a “Psychology of sustainability”, which, hopefully, will continue to gain increasing relevance and cross-connections with psychological and other disciplines.

The goal of this Call for Paper is to elucidate specific contributions for understanding and intervention into the climate crisis that can be derived from community psychology. The perspective taken by community psychology (e.g. clinical and political, ecological, multilevel, action-oriented, multidisciplinary), the issues it addresses (e.g. resilience, coping, prevention, well-being, sense of community, participation, networking, power and empowerment), the justice-oriented values (e.g. social and climatic justice) may contribute a useful framework to face this crisis and offer intervention.

Anyone interested in submitting a paper may send an abstract (max. 200 words) to the Guest Editor at angela.fedi@unito.it, by November 30, 2022.

The deadline for submission of papers is January 30, 2023.

Call for papers: Understanding Environmental Justice

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Special Issue Call for Papers, Understanding Environmental Justice, Social Sciences.

Environmental justice is based on psychological and social processes related to shared practices and characterized by solidarity, mutual respect and the understanding of rights and duties for all peoples and living beings. Any individual, independently of their geographical or cultural origin, is considered to have the right to be free from any form of discrimination or prejudice.

Environmental justice promotes ethics and responsibility in the use of land and renewable resources in the interest of a sustainable planet. Topics relating to the extraction, production and disposal of waste whose management threatens the fundamental right to clean the air, land, water and food will be valid for this Special Issue.

A significant part of this Issue will be dedicated to workers and their rights to stay in safe and healthy environments.

Issues relating to politics and economics will not be excluded, but these must not have the character of propaganda or meanings of supremacy. The Special Issue is intended to enhance multiple research perspectives, mixed methods, as well as traditional qualitative and quantitative approaches.

More info please see HERE.

Special Issue Editors: Dr Eugenio De Gregorio, Dr Marco Boffi, Dr Lavinia Cicero, Dr Nicola Rainisio, Dr Lorenza Tiberio.

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 January 2023.

The increasing relevance of European rural young people in policy agendas: Contributions from community psychology

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Webinar with Francisco Simões, 19 December 2022, 5PM (CET).

With contributions from Elena Marta, Cinzia Albanesi, Nicolas Carr, and Maria Fernandes-Jesus.

About the webinar

Our presentation focuses on a central question: how can community psychology contribute to improving rural young people’s prospects? This question is relevant in face of (a) the increasing relevance of rural younger generations in European policy agendas; and (b) the massive societal transformation associated with the dual (digital and green) transition that will also affect rural communities. After briefly introducing the demographic trends of these young people in continental Europe for the past decade, we list the current challenges faced by rural European young generations, as well as the opportunities emerging for them from the twin transition that can inspire the community psychology field. We then contextualize community psychologists’ interventions in this domain according to an ecological-systemic standpoint and by embracing a Participatory Action Research (PAR) perspective on research and practice. We further detail the reasons for adopting a PAR approach in research and practice to address rural young people’s challenges and opportunities. Finally, we highlight four potential intermediation missions to uphold community psychologists’ rural youth development input, based on the adopted theoretical and methodological standpoint. We conclude that our short guide can facilitate community psychology professionals’ complete understanding of rural young generations’ prospects, in line with the expected increase in the need of/demand for rural young people’s participation. Our proposal may also have long-term benefits for rural communities by contributing to the redesigning of intergenerational relationships and securing critical mass.

Picture from Tomasz Filipek

Importantly, this presentation results from a creative session at the 11th European Conference of Community Psychology held in June 2021 and summarizes a paper recently published in the Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology.

Simões, F., Fernandes-Jesus, M., Marta, E., Albanesi, C. & Carr, N. (2022, in press). The increasing relevance of European rural young people in policy agendas: Contributions from community psychology. Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1002/casp.2640

About the presenter

Francisco Simões is an Associate Researcher at and Full Member of the Centre for Social Research and Intervention (Cis-Iscte). He is co-coordinator of the thematic line “Promoting Inclusion, Equality and Citizenship” of the SociDigitalLab for Public Policy and co-coordinator of the research group Community, Education, and Development (CED), between 2017 and 2021. He is the chair of COST Action 18213 – Rural NEET Youth Network, funded by the European Commission, through the COST Association (2019-2023) and Principal Investigator (PI) of the project Tr@ck-IN – Public employment services tracking effectiveness in supporting rural NEETs, funded by the Youth Employment Fund (EEA & Norway Grants) (2021-2024). His work focuses on a psychosocial analysis of the school-to-work transition, namely social inclusion, well-being, and access to education and decent jobs for vulnerable young people such as those Not in Employment, nor in Education or Training (NEET). He has also dedicated his work to scientific advice for public policies in these areas, at regional, national and European levels.  He has experience in coordinating scientific teams to implement projects in public institutions, in Portugal. Between 2004 and 2015, he also collaborated with several organizations and projects (Caritas da Ilha Terceira, Câmara Municipal de Angra do Heroísmo; ISCTE-IUL team responsible for supervising schools included in the Priority Territories for Educational Interventions – TEIP program) in the role of an external advisor.

Carolyn Kagan (England)

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What attracted you to community psychology?

As a student in 1971-74 a small part of the curriculum was devoted to social psychology. At the time, I was involved in social action groups via Christian Aid (regarding homelessness) and International Voluntary Service (regarding women migrants who did not speak English) and had previously worked with young women caught up in the criminal justice system. The social psychology course addressed none of the issues arising from these experiences. The Tavistock Institute advertised a post for a ‘community psychologist’ and, as chair of our Psychology Society, I invited the contact person to come and speak – the post was really about clinical work in the community – but got a group of us thinking about what a community psychology could be. To my delight in 1976, Mike Bender published a book (Community Psychology, Methuen) which, although somewhat clinical, in which I had no interest, revealed further possibilities for a community psychology. I was a social psychology post graduate (1974-76) during the ‘crisis’ in social psychology and the relevance (or not) of social psychology was being called. Nigel Armistead’s reconstructing Social Psychology (1974) was an important influence as were Hare and Secord’s Explanation of Social Behaviour. In 1979 I spent a year at University New South Wales where I met Sidney Engleberg (a USA-trained, mostly quantitative community psychologist); worked with Alez Carey (a political and industrial psychologist) and gave a public lecture on Psychology of Women (which was in its infancy) – from an all-male department. These factors combined with a growing interest in Latin American politics and encounters with community psychologists from that continent shaped my interest in community psychology.

What makes community psychology special?

A number of things. A concern with social justice; a concern with social change which inevitably means taking a political stance to social issues like inequality, migration, patriarchy, and the economy; working with people about issue that concern them (beyond mental health) and that are not prescribed by service organisations; a systems perspective that throws up the possibilities of understanding and working with complexities; possibilities for interdisciplinary perspectives and for working collaboratively through progressive alliances; an action research orientation; possibilities for incorporating non-professional knowledges into theory and practice. I worked in academia in UK and we had the opportunity to develop a particular approach to community psychology, untrammeled by the pressures and priorities of service or other organizations.

An event that was formative for your interest in or engagement with community psychology?

Meeting and working with Alex Carey who was doing some work in partnership with the Australian Telecomms Union. Nothing in my training had ever raised the possibilities (and actualities) of working politically, or of partnering with a trade union.

What is the future of community psychology in Europe?

There is a strong network across national boundaries, which has done some great work in networking; academic developments; cross-national research. For many years European community psychology suffered from the perception of a strong in-group, making it difficult for others to permeate. This group is now beginning to expand to include younger community psychologists or those interested in community psychology. There is still a lot of work to convince active people (in the UK) of the benefits of working at a European – or indeed international – level and the major challenge is processes of communication between those interested at a European level and those working in the different countries. The zeitgeist is in favour of better collaborative links – at least in academia, possibly not amongst practitioners.

One piece of advice for aspiring community psychologists?

Be thick skinned and keep a sense of humour: never take the ire you might be confronted with as people’s power is challenged personally. Always work collaboratively.

How about a song? One that symbolizes what community psychology is about for you?

Phil Ochs, “When I’m Gone,” 1966.

Special Issues Call for Papers JCASP

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The Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology is calling for submissions for two special issues.

Multicultural Identities in Context: The influence of social, community, environmental and historical factors

Special Issue Editors: Elena Trifiletti, Katarina Pettersson, Verónica Benet-Martínez, Seth Schwartz, Alan Meca, and Yasin Koc

Deadline for Abstract Submission: 31st January 2023.

Sport for the Community: Psychological and sociomoral benefits of sport participation in youth and adult communities

Special Issue Editors:  Elisa Bisagno, Marianna Alesi, Francesca Vitali, Alessia Cadamuro, Veronica Margherita Cocco, Loris Vezzali, and Maria Kavussanu

Deadline for Manuscript Submission: 1st May 2023

Call for Papers JCASP ‘Sport for the Community’

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Special Issue Call for Papers, Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology.

Sport for the Community: Psychological and sociomoral benefits of sport participation in youth and adult communities

Special Issue Editors:  Elisa Bisagno, Marianna Alesi, Francesca Vitali, Alessia Cadamuro, Veronica Margherita Cocco, Loris Vezzali, and Maria Kavussanu

Deadline for Manuscript Submission: 1st May 2023

More information here.