Cruz, M. R., & Sonn, C. C. (2011). (De)colonizing culture in community psychology: Reflections from critical social science. American Journal of Community Psychology, 47(1-2), 203-214.
ABSTRACT

Since its inception, community psychology has been interested in cultural matters relating to issues of diversity and marginalization. However, the field has tended to understand culture as a static social marker or as the background for understanding group differences. In this chapter, the authors contend that culture is inseparable from who we are and what we do as social beings. Moreover, culture is continually shaped by socio-historical and political processes intertwined within the globalized history of power. They propose a decolonizing standpoint grounded in critical social science to disrupt understandings of cultural matters that marginalize others. This standpoint would move the field toward deeper critical thinking, reflexivity, and emancipatory action. They conclude that community psychology must aim toward intercultural work, engaging its political nature from a place of ontological/epistemological/methodological parity. We present our work to illustrate how we integrate a decolonizing standpoint to community psychology research and teaching.