Shahnaaz Suffla – författare

This edited volume in the Community Psychology Book Series emphasizes applications of community psychology for disrupting dominant and hegemonic power relations. The book explores domains of work that are located within critical community psychology, as well as work that is conventionally not self-defined as community psychology but which draws on and contributes to the foundations and enactments of critical and liberatory community psychology. Specifically, the book advances conceptions and praxes for community psychology grounded within a decolonial framework. The volume heeds the call for a generation of approaches to community psychology that link local struggles to broader questions of power, identity, and knowledge production, bringing together examples of praxes from different contexts as a political project of highlighting indigenous struggles toward self-determination. Collectively, the chapters in this book embody a decolonial agenda for community psychology that foregrounds social justice;  the lives and knowledges of the marginalized and oppressed; epistemic disobedience and transdisciplinarity; and decolonial aesthetics. The book is divided into two parts - Part I: Conceptions of Engagement for Community Psychology delves into the conceptual framework for a decolonial community psychology, and Part II: Modes of Enactments and Praxes for Community Psychology builds on these theoretical advancements through examples of praxis in different contexts. The audience for the book includes scholars, researchers, practitioners, activists, and students located within community psychology specifically, as well as disciplines within the health and social sciences, and arts and humanities more broadly.

With the major goal of building an inclusive international community that promotes peace-related research and action, this volume reflects on local, national and global peace engagement and works towards transdisciplinary understandings of the role of psychology in peace, conflict, and violence.  Drawn primarily from 14th Biennial International Symposium on the Contributions of Psychology, the chapters focus on peacemaking--or the pursuit of harmony in human relations-- and peacebuilding--or equity in human relations-- with a special emphasis on voices from typically underrepresented areas in psychology, such as the Global South.

In order to move beyond a Western-centered idea of peace psychology, the volume is divided into two major parts. The first half of the volume puts an emphasis on peace psychology research and praxis in a number of geohistorical contexts, including Malaysia, Northern Ireland, Thailand, and Kashmir, that bear on conflict, harmony and equity in human relations. Chapters in the second half of the volume fulfill the mandate of Biennial Symposia; namely, to create more equity in the production of peace theory and praxis by bringing forward the voices of scholars and change agents that are often unheard in peace discourses, including a number of scholars and chapters from South Africa. Additionally, throughout the chapters, the authors and editors of the volume emphasize emancipatory agendas as an important alternative to militarism and state-sponsored violence.

With the aim of bringing forward voices from cultures and situations that are typically not included or highly visible in peace discourses, Enlarging the Scope of Peace Psychology in Invited and Invented Spaces: African and World-Regional Contributions is a thought-provoking, timely, and informative work. Psychologists, anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists, activists, public-policy makers, andall those interested in promoting peace and justice, are sure to find this an invaluable and illuminating resource.  

Offering a unique set of case studies that invites readers to question and reimagine the concept of community engagement,  this collected work provides an overview and analysis of numerous, creative participatory research methods designed to improve well-being at both the individual and societal level. In a world where there are enormous differences in the wealth and health of people, it is increasingly recognized that sustainable peace requires both a broad--‐based public commitment to nonviolence combined with noticeable increments in the wellbeing of people who occupy the lowest socioeconomic strata of societies.  This volume focuses on the latter-how to use qualitative research methods to improve well-being of research participants, and thus, the wider society. The participatory research examples described in these chapters are meant to encourage researchers, scholars, and practitioners to question assumed knowledge about community engagement research and practice, and to inspire social justice-oriented scholarship.

The cases studies and methods portrayed are as varied as the situations and cultures in which they take place. In most of the case studies, the personal is linked to the political with a social justice imperative as participants from marginalized communities express an understanding of their own position within power hierarchies, deconstruct power relations, and experience a sense of agency. In other instances, the methods are no less participatory but the aim is more focused on inner and outer harmony, psychological wellbeing, conflict resolution and intergroup reconciliation. In all the cases studies, there is a strong emphasis on methods in which community members are at the center of efforts to promote social change. The methods described include group storytelling, community arts, asset mapping, dialogues, creative writing, embroidery, filmmaking, Photovoice, “writing back” to power, and other means of engaging in emancipatorypraxis and promoting personal wellbeing. Taken together, the chapters illustrate creative ways in which community members, embedded in disadvantaged contexts, can engage in a dynamic process that stimulates individual and collective agency.  Ultimately, this volume will provide readers with a deeper understanding of a wide range of creative, qualitative research methods, and will encourage establishment of an effective social justice agenda essential to human wellbeing and sustainable peace.