Cinzia Albanesi

Webinar with Francesca Esposito, September 23, 2021. Discussant: Regina Langhout.

About the webinar

During the past few decades, the detention of illegalised non-citizens has become a common practice in a world increasingly characterised by concerns for homeland security and the criminalization of human mobility. In this context, immigration detention centres have become new total institutions used to confine ‘unwanted’ non-citizens, especially coming from the so-called global South, and achieve immigration-related aims such as deportation. This measure, and border control more broadly, is strongly affecting the lives of individuals, their families and communities at large.

Within the quite limited body of empirical research produced on immigration detention, the majority of contributions in the medical and psychological fields have been dedicated to assessing the clinical consequences of detention, detailing the long-term psychological distress that it causes on those subject to it (detainees). Notwithstanding the importance of this research, there is currently a need to adopt an ecological perspective from which to study these sites as well as the experiences of those within them as context-dependent and influenced by power inequalities.

Drawing upon advances in community psychology, I will illustrate an ecological framework for the study of immigration detention settings and their multi-level effects on those inside them. This framework focuses on justice as a key dimension of analysis. Taking the largest Italian detention centre as a case study – the Ponte Galeria detention centre in Rome – I will also present a concrete example of application of this same framework in a research aimed at examining the life and lived experiences of both people detained and practitioners working with them.

Findings highlight the oppressive qualities of immigration detention and its detrimental effects on all people coming into direct or indirect contact with it. Scarcity of resources, activities and information created a very distressing environment for detained people, while also enhancing feelings of powerlessness and frustration in practitioners willing to assist them. Bound in a different space and time, detained people were turned into dispossessed subjects, completely estranged from the outside community. Despite the hostile environment surrounding them, however, people languishing in Ponte Galeria displayed an extraordinary ability to cope with, resist and challenge the persisting conditions of injustice they endured.

I will conclude by discussing the broader implications of these findings for transformative research, politics and action, with a particular focus on the role of community psychologists.

About the presenter

Dr. Francesca Esposito completed her PhD in Community Psychology in 2019, at the ISPA-University Institute of Lisbon, Portugal. From 2019 to 2020 she was a British Academy Newton International Fellow at the Centre for Criminology at the University of Oxford, then a researcher at the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon and more recently a Lecturer at the University of Westminster in London. Francesca’s research focuses primarily on immigration detention, in Portugal, Italy and the UK. Mixing qualitative/quantitative interviews and ethnographic observations, she critically examines the life and lived experiences of people inside detention centres. Particularly, her recent project, entitled “Making Gender Visible in Immigration Detention”, looks at the gendered and racialised experiences of detained women and at their strategies of survival and resistance. Francesca is interested in participatory methodologies and feminist community psychology approaches, and in her work she combines scholarly research, community-based intervention and activism. Since 2020, she has been a member of the Executive Board of the European Community Psychology Association (ECPA).

About the discussant

Professor Langhout’s primary research takes place in elementary schools and neighborhoods that serve working class and working poor African American, Latina/o, and white students. She uses a paradigm called participatory action research (PAR) to critically examine schools and neighborhoods. With PAR, stakeholder groups collaborate to determine problems and interventions. Her empirical research includes determining recess interventions though playground observations and focus groups, surveying teachers, parents, and students to assess their perceptions of school context, and working with young people to develop and paint a mural on school grounds in order to create a more welcoming atmosphere for students and their families.

Webinar with May Lene Karlsen, 27 May 2021. Discussant: Stefania Maggi

About the webinar

Hearing children is of interest to anyone who believes that every voice is important for a society to be whole. It is of interest to those who believe that to neglect, marginalise or systematically overlook a group of people, is to deprive our communities of the qualities that only this particular group can offer. Hearing children is not just a concern for those working directly with and for children, but for all who believes in a society where every voice counts.

The international community, through the United Nations convention for children’s rights, have agreed that every child have a right to be heard and yet we find that few active attempts are being made at engaging and hearing young children on the big issues facing our world today. Why is this?  Do children under the age of 12 have a place in the social discourse on topics such as the pandemic, inequality and racism? Can they contribute to politics and policymaking in meaningful ways? What could systematic attempts at hearing young children on big issues look like? These are some of the questions that will be explored in this webinar, drawing on examples and experiences gained through the Children Heard project.

Children Heard was initiated in March 2020 by a counselling psychologist in the UK and a community psychologist in Norway. Through partnerships with three UNICEF offices in Europe, they gathered the views of 240 children aged 3-12 about their experiences and opinions on the pandemic. The project is currently gathering views on racism through a family-based interview and are experimenting with methods of engaging young children on topics of global importance.

About the presenter

May Lene Karlsen is a counselling and community psychologist. She completed her doctorate in Counselling Psychology at the University of Surrey in 2010 and have since then worked in services for children and families with a particular interest in pre- and primary school aged children. In addition to clinical work, she has worked as an associated and visiting lecturer at several doctoral programmes in the UK, as clinical lead for a children’s charity in London and now as a community psychologist for a local government in Norway. She is a committee member of the Community Psychology Section of the British Psychological Society and an active member of her own local community in Sandefjord, Norway. She co-founded Children Heard in 2020 with Dr. Gail Sinitsky.

About the discussant

Dr. Maggi is an interdisciplinary scholar whose mixed-methods research bring together developmental sciences, population health approaches, participatory methods, statistical modelling, and arts-based approaches. Her work focuses on individual and collective resilience; positive development and emotional intelligence; social, educational and relational determinants of early career development; impacts of climate change on children and families; and enabling factors promoting individual and collective environmental behaviours and action.  Dr. Maggi is also a science fiction author, an entrepreneur, and child rights advocate. She is cross appointed between the Childhood and Youth Studies program and the Department of Psychology at Carleton University.

Webinar with José Ornelas, April 29, 2021

About the webinar

Deinstitutionalization is a theory transformed into a social movement after the II World War, focused on the transition of all individuals who were in institutions to community contexts, contributing to diversity within the social realm. With the emergence of Civic and Human Rights Movements, deinstitutionalization became a priority including people with mental illness, people with disabilities, children, youth, and elders.

Nevertheless, evidence demonstrates that the majority of people were involved in a continuum of services of transinstitutionalization from large scale segregated wards to smaller segregated housing, employment and schooling programs in the community. From the self representation movement, and experiential leadership of consumers/ survivors, emerged a new wave of services and programs (e.g. independent housing, employment and education in regular markets and and schools) still not fully generalized in Europe. 

The pandemic contingency brought awareness on the extension and volume of  institutionalized people, particularly the more recent massive segregation of elders, while the psychiatric wards, and the large group homes for the disabled people, and for children & youth were mostly maintained. In these contexts countless COVID 19 surges emerged, providing a renovated awareness about the urgency of reclaiming deinstitutionalization as a Human Right. We are now prepared with tools for community research and practice to provide a direct response to deinstitutionalization and social integration through housing with the Housing First Model, with employment and education programs through ecological and collaborative integration in the social and community regular contexts.

About the presenter

Prof. Ornelas is a Clinical and Community Psychologist, specialized in community intervention and integration of people in extremely vulnerable situations. Completed his first doctoral degree in the Boston University (USA) – 1979-1984; and a second doctoral degree in the University of Oporto (1999). He completed his aggregation in the University of the Azores (2009). 

From 2016 to 2019 Ornelas was the principal investigator of the Horizon 2020 HOME_EU Reversing Homelessness in Europe, GA/726997, and is currently the coordinator of the EEAGRANTS Project (OC4-B11 | ISPA) PEER NETWORK: Gender Violence and Empowerment. He is the scientific adviser of a community-based program on the promotion of educational achievement in 5 Portuguese national counties, in parallel with teaching and research supervision of Master’s and Doctoral thesis on Psychology.