Toward Psychologies of Liberation by Watkins Mary.; Shulman Helene

Author:Watkins, Mary.; Shulman, Helene. [Helene., Watkins, Mary.; Shulman,]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2010-09-21T14:24:43.113669+00:00

Part IV

Participatory Practices of

Liberation Psychologies

Our personal and communal lives can be bounded by limits that separate us from living how we most deeply desire. Rather than accept these limits as inevitable, Alvaro Vieira Pinto defines a limit-situation not as “the impassable boundaries where possibilities end, but the real boundaries where all possibilities begin; [they are not] the frontier which separates being from nothingness, but the frontier which separates being from being more” (in Freire, 1989, p. 89). Conventional selves defined by official histories accept limit situations as the boundaries of their worlds; those who are marginalized, nomadic, mestiza, or border crossers often feel forced to push at the received limits, especially those that seem foreclosing and frozen. Through the methodologies of liberation psychologies, people may reflect together on how limits came to be, begin to see them as a construction that can be undone, and as a situation that can be rethought and transformed. Through witness, dialogue, mourning, and the re-working of subjectivity, they can reimagine the diminishing and destructive limits they encounter in order to build a different social reality. But such engagement requires the development of new kinds of liminal spaces and institutions in which to do this work: third spaces or interstitial spaces.

There is a desperate need for the creation of liberatory communities of resistance where subjectivity, dialogue, and innovative ways of being in the world can be explored. These interstitial spaces are like protected coves or small harbors, places to engage with each other in local arenas sheltered from the dangers of open waters. Belenky, Bond, and Weinstock (1997) call these spaces “public homeplaces”; Evans and Boyte (1986) name them “free spaces” for democratic change; Bloom (1997) describes them as sanctuaries. The Zapatistas liken these spaces to the inner sanctums of a snail shell, hidden chambers where the inner workings of a community are protected (DeLeon, 2002). These are intermediate places “between private identities and large-scale institutions” (Evans and Boyte, 1986, p. 190). As we shall see in Chapter 11, public homeplaces are sites where one can become clear about 207

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Toward Psychologies of Liberation

how oppression is internalized, while new forms of liberatory subjectivity can be improvised and rehearsed.

Most liberation psychology projects involve participatory forms of art making to help awaken new symbols for transformation, seeking to liberate underground springs capable of renewing cultural landscapes. Here one can begin to give shape to utopian dreams and re-imagined social arrangements. In Chapter 12, we will present participatory community arts processes and methodologies that have been developed in various projects throughout the world, differentiating them from other forms of art making. In Chapters 13 and 14 on critical participatory action research, we will explore how research can become an empowering process of searching together for needed liberatory understandings. We will present the basic orientation and ethics of this approach, showing through examples its radical departures from mainstream psychological research practices. Liberation psychologies are founded on the desire to peacefully work through hostilities with others.

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