Nick Malherbe – författare

Anti-capitalist political struggle is a site of struggling psychologies. Conscious political action is never far from unconscious desire, and the fight for material justice is always also the fight for dignity and psychological well-being. Yet, how might community psychologists conceive of their discipline in a way that opposes the very capitalist political economy that, historically, most of the psy-disciplines have bolstered in return for disciplinary legitimacy?  In its consideration of an anti-capitalist psychology of community, this book does not ignore or try to resolve the contradictory position of such a psychology. Instead, it draws on these contradictions to enliven psychology to the shifting demands - both creative and destructive - of a community-centred anti-capitalism. Using practical examples, the book deals with the psychological components of building community-centred social movements that challenge neoliberal capitalism as a political system, an ideology, anda mode of governing rationality. The book also offers several theoretical contributions that grapple with how an anti-capitalist psychology of community can remain attentive to the psychological elements of anti-capitalist struggle; what the psychological can tell us about anti-capitalist politics; and how these politics can shape the psychological.

This handbook offers refined interpretations of decolonial thought, methodologies, and practices in community psychology. As a representative mapping of the broad range of decolonial cosmovisions, experiences, and praxes in community psychology and allied disciplines around the globe, it brings together contributions from North America, Latin America, Europe, Oceania, Africa, and Asia. It offers an overview of community psychology with a decolonial focus and from a transnational perspective, transcending intellectual, geographical, and cultural borders, and constraining identities, affirming and celebrating the unique identities, experiences, and positions of its contributors within the global landscape of knowledge and politics.

The handbook illuminates the dynamic intersections between resistance and colonial legacies, foregrounding the enduring struggles against settler colonialism and racial capitalism across diverse geographies, temporalities, and histories. Underscoring the urgency of addressing inter-connected local and global challenges, such as land rights, livelihoods, and dignified existence, it offers hopeful yet critical perspectives on radical social justice struggles around the globe.

The volume brings together contributions from scholars, academics, educators, researchers, practitioners, activists, and community collaborators, and its chapters range in style and format. Some are more aligned with academic writing, while others - in the spirit of decolonizing disciplinary logics - are structured through more undisciplined, less constrained writing forms. Each author was invited to question the coloniality of power in and beyond community psychology. As such, the handbook contains productions that trouble the manifestations of coloniality both in the past and in the present, as well as in the different territories of the Majority World, particularly within settler colonial nation-states.

As a seminal work, the Handbook of Decolonial Community Psychology will further define and shape the contours of knowledge in decolonial community psychology, and inspire new generations of scholars, practitioners, students, and community organizers to advance the field with innovative ideas and transformative practices.