ACP Vol 29 Issue 1 2018.Pub

Mobilising decolonial approaches for community-engaged research for racial justice1

Christopher Sonn Institute of Health and Sport, Victoria University

This article will describe some projects at Victoria University that have sought to enact community-engaged scholarship concerned specifically with matters of race, racism and racialised exclusion. I will discuss some of this research within the changing broader landscape of critical community psychology contexts. The projects discussed sit within a program of work broadly focused on the challenges to living that people face in different contexts because of histories of colonialism, racism, displacement and exclusion. Community-based projects are described to show efforts to contribute to empowerment- oriented, community-engaged work. Important features of this work have included the creation of spaces within the university that are committed to inter-disciplinarity, creativity, support and survival within a neoliberalised institution. The connections made with community agencies and groups are equally important: they help to reduce the distance between university and community. Through these relationships, we participate in producing new ways to support individuals, groups and communities in actions aimed at individual and group self-determination and wellbeing.

This article will describe some projects Race and racism have been central to that have sought to enact community- the colonisation of Indigenous Australians. engaged scholarship that is concerned Stratton (2011) described Australia as a specifically with matters of race, racism and settler colonial nation with a shameful racialised exclusion. As part of the article, I history of colonising Indigenous outline the broader critical scholarship Australians. Colonisation and the ideology pertinent to critical community psychology of race and racism are not phenomena of that we have mobilised at Victoria University the past. Quijano (2000) argued that even (VU) to articulate a decolonising standpoint though colonialism may formally have for community-engaged research and ended, “coloniality of power” names the pedagogy. Community psychologists in continuities in the so called “post-colonial different countries around the world have a era” of the social hierarchical relationships history of working in various social justice of exploitation and domination between causes (Reich, Riemer, Prilleltensky, & Europeans and non-Europeans built during Montero, 2007). In Australia, such causes centuries of European colonial expansion have included supporting Indigenous self- basedon cultural and social power relations. determination, advocacy for peace and the Maldonado-Torres (2007) suggests that; prevention of war, and the promotion of … coloniality survives colonialism. It gender and racial equality (Gridley & Breen, is maintained alive in books, in the 2007). More specifically, at Victoria criteria for academic performance, in University situated in the western region of cultural patterns, in common sense, in Melbourne, different groups of researchers the self-image of peoples, in have been involved in various projects that aspirations of self, and so many other focus on tackling issues of racism and aspects of our modern experience. In racialised inequalities that continue to shape a way, as modern subjects we breathe the everyday lived experiences and life coloniality all the time and every day. opportunities of Aboriginal Australians and (p. 243). various immigrant groups. In the Australian context researchers have similarly argued that colonisation and

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coloniality are not phenomena of the past. Race and racism have also played a For example, Krieg (2009) commented that significant role in shaping Australia’s early “colonisation was not a moment–but is an immigration policies, which privileged white ongoing experience with multiple persistent immigration under the immigration contemporary traumatizing events continuing restriction Act of 1901 (known as the White to impact daily on Aboriginal families and Australia Policy) until its removal in the communities” (p. 30). 1970s (Hage, 1998; Stratton, 2011). These The colonising experience of Victorian historical policies alongside histories of Aboriginal people has included the colonialism and subjugation of Australia’s systematic dispossession of culture, land, First Nations, have led to a racialised white language, family and community. Colonial Anglo national identity, positioned against a projects were realised through “massive marginalised and excluded black violence, forcing the history, culture, and “other” (Ahluwalia, 2001). While policies genealogy of blacks into oblivion” (Bulhan, have changed towards social inclusion of 1985, p. 297). For Aboriginal people, immigrants, several studies have highlighted particularly those removed and that racism and racialisation continues to institutionalised, and their descendants, this characterize the experiences of immigrant has been further compounded by a removal groups, in particular those of African origin. of identity, including their legal identity and Markus (2016), for example, reported that 60 disconnection from Aboriginality, and by -77% of migrants from African countries racism, as well as institutionalised physical, (including Ethiopia, Kenya, South Sudan, sexual and emotional abuse (Atkinson, Zimbabwe) reported having experienced Nelson, Brooks, Atkinson & Ryan, 2014; discrimination that it is linked to the colour Dudgeon, Wright, Paradies, Garvey, & of their skin. The Australian Human Rights Walker, 2014; Quayle, 2017). But while Commission (2010) also found that the violence and removal impacted severely majority of African-background Australians upon the lives of Aboriginal people, such reported that their appearance influences negative forces did not completely break their experience and manifests in racism and connections with family and community. prejudice. There is also continued pernicious Indigenous people continue to face racialisation of Africans within media and various forms of exclusion, such as racism political discourse, often constructing and marginalisation, that require responses African people as criminal, culturally from them and that have implications for the incompatible, and as being hampered by health and social emotional wellbeing of experiences of trauma and lack of education individuals and communities. Consultation (Baak, 2011, 2018; Hatoss, 2012). with Aboriginal groups in the western region In order to tackle racism and its of Melbourne has identified a priority need consequences, it is important to contextualise for specific support for people who come to current dynamics of exclusion within these discover their identity as Aboriginal, longer histories of colonization and racism. particularly children and young people, and Fine and Ruglis (2009) suggest critical also people displaced through dispersal inquiry needs to disrupt the circuits and whose needs for understanding and care are consequences of dispossession because of its insufficiently acknowledged or satisfied at deleterious psychosocial consequences for present (Balla, McCallum, Sonn, Jackson, racialised groups, as well as the attendant McKenna, & Marion, 2009). This population privilege that accrues to those in dominant is diverse, because people have moved into social positions. There is a growing the area from other parts of Victoria and movement in many countries in the global Australia for a host of reasons, including to South and North, calling for a reinvigoration connect with family and to be closer to of community psychology research and family members in prison. action, advocating critical scholarship inspired by decolonising methodologies,

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liberation psychologies, and the need for commonly employed by Indigenous epistemic justice (Adams, Dobles, Gómez, peoples struggling for justice. (p. 34) Kurtiș, & Molina, 2015; Dutta, Sonn, & More recently, and within the context of a Lykes, 2016; Evans, Duckett, Lawthom, & growing modernity/coloniality project, Kivell, 2017; Seedat & Suffla, 2017). Maldonado Torres (2016) wrote: Approaches to Decolonisation and … decoloniality refers to efforts at Liberation rehumanizing the world, to breaking Critical scholars have advocated the hierarchies of difference that need for the retrieval, reclamation, and dehumanize subjects and renewal of subjugated knowledges and communities and that destroy nature, practices, and argued that these are central to and to the production and counter- processes and practices of self- determination discourses, counter-knowledges, and emancipation of oppressed groups counter-creative acts, and counter- (Montero, Sonn, & Burton, 2017). In Latin practices that seek to dismantle America, Martín-Baró (1994) advocated that coloniality and to open up multiple psychology should develop a new praxis that other forms of being in the world recognises people’s virtues, based in the (p.10). lived realities of the oppressed to engage in Decolonising methodologies and the recovery of historical memory, and to de- decolonial theory have their roots in different ideologise taken-for-granted social realities countries in the Global South (Mignolo, in the process of reconstructing identities and 2009; Smith, 1999/2012). Connell (2007) has communities. Dialogue and ethics are central referred to this as Southern Theories, and to this paradigm as it positions the other as a Santos (2007) has highlighted the need to “social actor, who must be respected, who challenge the ignorance that has been constructs knowledge, who has history. So produced by “epistemicide”: the silencing of there must be mutual respect. In those and ignorance to ways of knowing via the relationships, both human actors and the very privileging of Eurocentric epistemologies. relationship changes” (Montero & Sonn, The decolonial project, as Ndhlovu (2016) 2009, p.2). Watkins and Shulman (2008) and others (e.g., Santos, 2007) have describe the work of liberation and suggested, is not dismissive of knowledges decolonisation this way: “…claiming that have been developed in western resources; testimonies, storytelling, and contexts. Instead, the decolonial project remembering to claim and speak about contests universal master narratives and extremely painful events and histories; and seeks to promote epistemological justice by research that celebrates survival and including that which has been excluded, resilience and that revitalizes language, arts, silenced, dismissed and distorted (Santos, and cultural practices” (p. 276). Linda Smith 2007). (1999/2012) has argued for decolonising This writing has been central to efforts methodologies and strategies: to promote racial justice through our Coming to know the past has been community-based research in Australia, and part of the critical pedagogy of in other contexts. My Puerto Rican colleague decolonization. To hold alternative Mariolga Reyes Cruz and I (Reyes Cruz & histories is to hold alternative Sonn, 2015) have advocated for a knowledges. The pedagogical decolonising standpoint, one that seeks to implication of this access to disrupt alternative knowledges is that they essentialist understandings of cultural can form the basis of alternative ways matters that have served historically of doing things…. Telling our stories to marginalize others. This standpoint from the past, reclaiming the past, brings into clearer view ways in giving testimony to the injustices of which power/privilege/oppression are the past are all strategies, which are reproduced and contested through

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racialized and ethnicized practices human condition that defines and discourses; that is, how social normality and inhabits it (p. 172). inequality is maintained and Whiteness studies (see Green, Sonn & challenged through culture (Reyes Matsebula, 2007 for a review) have played Cruz & Sonn, 2015, p. 128). an important role in our work. Theories from The standpoint in question is not the area have been valuable in understanding limited by a discipline; it is transdisciplinary how racialised privilege is reproduced and it has been stitched together over time through discourses and the implications of through engagement with critical theories of this for immigrants, refugees and asylum race and whiteness studies and Indigenous seekers who are negotiating ways to approaches. The domains of displacement, belonging in everyday settings in Melbourne racism, sexism, and the challenges in (Sonn, Quayle, Mackenzie, & Law, 2014). everyday life that result from injustice are the These approaches have helped us to name starting point. As we have progressed our symbolic power and how it shapes work we have drawn on various critical Indigenous and non-Indigenous people’s theoretical and methodological resources to relationships in Western Australia (Green & elaborate liberation-oriented community Sonn, 2006; Quayle & Sonn, 2013). Central research and action to contribute to social to the critical race work and whiteness justice and empowerment - for it to be studies and the approach that we have socially engaged, responsive and progressive adopted is the notion of racialisation, which (see Coimbra, et al. 2012; Kagan, Burton, as Dhamoon (2009) writes, “alerts attention Duckett, Lawthom, & Siddiquee, 2011; to the social processes of meaning making Quayle & Sonn; 2013; Montero & Sonn, and highlights the significance of techniques 2009). of power, …” (p. 28). This approach means Critical theories of race and whiteness that we are able to focus on the way in which studies. A key strand of our work draws from racialisation gets under the skin (Fanon, critical theories of race and whiteness to 1967), but also the diversity of white examine how race thinking continues to subjectivities and positioning within the structure injustice in society and everyday context of racialised power relationships in life. To this end, we have drawn from critical efforts to form alliances and solidarities whiteness studies, where the focus is on the across lines of separation. critique of dominance, normativity and Indigenous approaches: Challenging privilege. According to Frankenberg (1993), epistemological ignorance. Indigenous whiteness signals the “… production and scholars and activists in Australia and other reproduction of dominance rather than countries, alongside critical scholars of race subordination, normativity rather than have argued for Indigenous and Indigenist marginality, and privilege rather than methodologies (Martin & Miraboopa; 2003; disadvantage’ (p. 236). According to Moreton Robinson & Walter, 2009) as part Moreton-Robinson (2004): of a broader set of responses to the history of Whiteness in its contemporary form colonisation and dispossession from an in Australian society is culturally Indigenous Australian perspective. A vital based. It controls institutions that are part of this process entails contesting and extensions of White Australian making visible the processes and practices culture and is governed by the values, through which Western hegemonic ways of beliefs and assumptions of that knowing have contributed to the production culture. Whiteness confers both of ignorance about Indigenous ways of dominance and privilege; it is knowing, being and doing (Moreton- embedded in Australian institutions Robinson, 2004; Smith, 1999/2012). In and in the social practices of everyday psychology, Dudgeon and Walker (2015; see life. It is naturalised, unnamed, also Glover, Dudgeon & Huygens, 2005) unmarked and it is represented as the have provided an argument for the

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decolonisation of the science of psychology around issues of identity, displacement and and provided several strategies for doing so. community in a global and local context. These strategies include disrupting racism Given that this network is concerned and Eurocentrism, the development of new with the social and political dynamics of a discourses and narratives that challenge sense of place, Footscray with its rich history mainstream conceptions of people and the of migration and diversity provides an origins of problems, challenge privilege and important site for the investigation of whiteness, and promote resources and displacement, identity, community and strategies that are Indigenous-led and hence change and the interaction between the local vital to self-determination and social and global. Some researchers have focused emotional-wellbeing (see also Walker, on the dynamics of place and place making Schultz & Sonn, 2014). in Footscray with specific reference to notion Given this overview of the context and of everyday multiculturalism and the theoretical landscape, I now turn to describe meaning of diversity there (Oke, Sonn, & three examples of our current work to McConville, 2016). That work has provided illustrate how we are doing community- important insights into unique and shared engaged inquiry in local contexts, “across the meanings that different population groups road”, as Julie van den Eynde, my local give to diversity as well as the positive colleague referred to it, pointing to the fact symbolic capital afforded by the collective that the work is literally with agencies in the understanding of the city as a “migrant” city. same suburb. The stories described below are McConville and Oke (2018) have also illustrative of efforts at our University to provided insight into the ways in which produce community-engaged scholarship urban renewal projects are displacing longer- (Boyer, 1996), a scholarship in the academy term residents, and they call for a much more that is a more “vigorous partner in the search nuanced use of the term gentrification in for answers to our most pressing social, contexts of transformation. civic, economic, and moral problems” (p.11). The network launched in 2011 and held Making Spaces for Creativity, Resistance its first very successful conference in 2012, and Self-determination and a follow up conference in 2017 on the Making the Community Identity and topic of Place, Politics, Privilege. The idea Displacement Research Network (CIDRN) for the network arose from a combination of The first example is about the research factors including reports that higher degree network called CIDRN that we have created researchers felt isolated and that there was at VU. It is a community of learning based not a strong culture of research in our school on collegiality and mutual support within the at the time. At that time in 2011, I had also neoliberalising university. CIDRN is a broad just returned from a visit to a university in network that draws together and fosters South Africa to work on a project called the scholarly investigation of new diasporas and Apartheid Archive Project (AAP) (Stevens, changing meanings of displacement and Duncan & Hook, 2013). The AAP project is identity. The network is conceived as an focused on race and racism in post-Apartheid intellectual space where new questions about South Africa and involves more than 20 indigeneity, racism, refugees, sense of place, researchers from various disciplines, but social inclusion, social justice, mostly critically oriented psychologists and transnationalism and xenophobia can be numerous students from fourth year to PhD. raised, debated and discussed. Research The project is multifaceted and has generated activities, such as the two projects described many outputs and various spin-off projects below, span across disciplinary boundaries since it was launched in 2010. For me the and advance multidisciplinary and project was a model of academic transdisciplinary perspectives. The network collaboration anchored in a commitment to also aims to explore and enable new social justice and change, and to scholarly theoretical and methodological interventions activism. The lead researchers promoted a

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mentoring model, focused on empowering in collaboration with Aboriginal and Torres and supporting women and black academics, Strait Islander people in that region, and the and being collegial and supportive. I was subsequent establishment of the Wyndham keen to see something similar at VU where Aboriginal Community Centre Committee we have many people researching and (WACCC). The collaboration between teaching about issues of race, migration, members of the Aboriginal Community and displacement, and so forth. Hence, the the City of Wyndham has been ongoing for proposal for a research network organised some years and was a response to Aboriginal around themes that resonated with people’s expressed needs for permanent researchers in different disciplines, and that places where people can come together, was open enough for people to shape the access services, foster community, and direction of projects within the framework of strengthen cultural identities. The specific the network. research project evolved from initial research As I reflect on CIDRN since its questions posed of Aboriginal community beginnings, I can say that we have survived members, the WACCC and the Care Connect and have operated inside the university, Planned Activity Group (PAG). Members of where restructuring and neoliberal these groups are seeking to establish spaces managerial practices are seemingly the norm, in which they can feel cultural safety and without becoming a formal institute, group, create new community narratives together. or centre, yet. The group runs with an open The purpose of the research was to gather the structure and people opt in. In some ways, stories of members of these groups, many of we are protesting productively within the whom were members of or children of Stolen system. We are producing work on our terms Generations. As Maori scholar Linda and we are seeking to be community- Tuhiwai Smith (1999/2012) has noted, engaged, both within and outside the “Telling our stories from the past, reclaiming university. We are making progress, but still the past, giving testimony to the injustices of need to work on practices to make welcome the past are all strategies which are different groups from our surrounding commonly employed by Indigenous communities and organisations. We are peoples… ” (p.34). Central to the looking to speak across disciplinary engagement was our effort to build boundaries, to maintain spaces for counter relationships, enact reciprocity, and to follow work within the neoliberal university and the the needs of the group. rigid managerial practices that are Making links and negotiating research constraining our roles, scholarship, and process. We embarked on a small creativity. We want to do more than survive collaborative study with Karen Jackson, in the system. Through CIDRN we are Director of the Moondani Balluk, Indigenous seeking to maintain and reinforce academic unit at VU, who has played a key collegiality, critique, scholarship, and to role in connecting VU researchers with local open our own horizons to the various ways Indigenous communities as well as forging of knowing and doing as they pertain to relationships with researchers at VU. Guided pressing local and global issues. The next by a commitment to self-determination and two projects sit within the CIDRN research the principles of reciprocity, the project theme of Race and Coloniality. unfolded over time. The first stage of the Aboriginal People Making Place in community engagement process included Melbourne’s West visiting the group and sharing lunch with This is an Indigenous-led project them. The purpose of the first visit was to developed over several years of collaboration introduce the researchers and the research between university and community. The and to gauge interest and levels of interest in research involves people brought together the story-telling project. At this stage, we through a community development project discussed our roles, the project design, and initiated in 2013-14 by the City of Wyndham the group’s ideas about the research. We

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highlighted the storytelling component and leaving the venue untidy. This setting was an that we were interested in their stories of Indigenous space, but within a broader non- making place in Melbourne’s west. We also Indigenous structure of the Community offered the group a storytelling workshop Centre. In the broader structure and power delivered by renowned Indigenous author, relations non-Indigenous staff seemingly Tony Birch. In order to continue building took “over” the space, responding to links, two emerging Indigenous researchers provocations and invitations to share stories. with experience in working with Aboriginal We made this observation as participants in people, including those who are members of the session and named it at our subsequent the Stolen Generations, spent time with the debriefing as a group. Importantly, this group over several weeks, in a sense insight provided additional context for becoming participant observers at the PAG understanding the interview data in relation setting. to people’s experiences as members of PAG The two researchers spent several days and their need for an Aboriginal-controlled over a 16-week period with the PAG group. space. During this period, nine stories were A key theme in the stories that people collected (from eight women and one man) relayed centred around the impact of forced from a possible 35. While many expressed an removals on their families and subsequent interest in sharing stories for the project, it generations. Some of the effects were was often very difficult to get access to expressed in terms of the dispossession of people because many members are older and culture and identity, disconnection from have health and mobility issues, and we had family and community, and racism and time constraints. The stories were transcribed racialisation and its harmful psychosocial and copies of the transcripts were returned to consequences. One person shared a story each of the interviewees for them to keep and illustrating that she was othered as a young to ensure that they were happy with the person – referred to as different and needing record. to be with “your kind”. She noted that: “… After the story gathering, the next step as a child I was seen by the Greeks and the was to organise and deliver the creative Cypriots, Italians, Maltese in Fawkner when writing workshop. Tony Birch delivered the I lived there, ‘you not Australian what are workshop to a small subgroup because other you?’ I was put down because I was darker. people were away on the day. He introduced And because my hair was different and I was strategies and techniques for writing, which always picked on that I didn’t belong. Now I included memory triggers and suggestions know where I belong”. Several of the for writing – mnemonic devices to help participants said that they affirmed their trigger memory and story writing. The Aboriginal identities later in their lives workshop setting was interesting and because it was hidden or concealed. Some revealing in and of itself because of the participants described the importance of this dynamics between group members and affirmation, but also the painful task of seeming non-Indigenous staff. For example, reconnecting and restoring these aspects of while the workshop was aimed at the self and culture denied to them. People Aboriginal participants, staff members were expressed the challenges that they have had free to participate. During the process of in dealing with various institutions to get story sharing non-Indigenous members took access to documents that are important to over the opportunities to share stories. While affirm their Aboriginal identity. in itself this may seem innocent, through the As a research group our initial analysis field work process it became clear that some of the data also suggested that the PAG of the Aboriginal group members described setting is central to the everyday life of this incidents which they felt were examples of group. Participation is meaningful in differential treatment, such as being accused different ways to people; for example, it of not packing up equipment and tables and fosters a sense of belonging derived from

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strong family and social relationships as everyday institutions’ social settings. The Aboriginal people making place together. project follows on from initial student The setting that people have created is placements with an agency called cohealth productive and linked with other community Arts Generator (cAG). Their work is settings and Indigenous community networks premised on the knowledge that access to the in the west of Melbourne and beyond. The arts is fundamental to enriching people’s data also suggested that participants engage lives and therefore increasing their in arts and creative practices to reclaim their wellbeing. The organisation specializes in cultural identities. These activities included engagement with a range of African knitting various items using coloured wool, communities, in particular the Melbourne typically, black, red and yellow symbolising South Sudanese community, which is the Aboriginality, and creating paintings of largest in Australia. landscapes and of places using dot-painting cAG uses creative and participatory techniques. Importantly, the group members arts methodologies, where art is both a sometimes sell the artefacts that they make process and an outcome. Through arts-based through networks at different venues and the and arts-informed practice, Arts Generator is funds are used to support other initiatives. seeking to: The participants also send outputs to young  engage with Africans in Australia who people who are in juvenile detention centres. experience limited access to arts and Through this practice of sharing, the group cultural opportunities, with the aim of members are enacting support and solidarity, improving wellbeing and increased reminding the young people that their agency through culturally appropriate Aunties and Uncles are thinking of them. arts-based practice that utilises a model Through this Indigenous-led project, of “embodied practice”; we have been able to identify the various  support community mobilisation and ways in which the PAG has come to play a leadership opportunities that increase central role in the everyday lives of its social inclusion, reduce discrimination members. The project affirmed that PAG is a and increase economic participation in primary social setting and a main point of African communities in cohealth’s “access to such group-based resources that catchments; include but are not limited to instrumental  Promote mental wellbeing in the support for action, leadership, channels of African communities of Australia communication, trust, and solidarity” (Çakal, through intercultural dialogue with Eller, Sirlopú, & Pérez, 2016, p. 356). The Aboriginal communities. information provided also points to the cAG is involved in an initiative to contribute importance of providing space and to these objectives, the Afrobeat initiative. opportunity for people to have support in This initiative aims to empower young their efforts to establish links with different people through the creative documentation of Aboriginal groups, as part of the process of the Afro Australian experience in Australia reclaiming identities and contributing to and to contribute to racial justice. The epistemic justice. The collaborative process initiative involves three components: of inquiry is guided by the ethic of  ‘In Our Eyes’ (working title): photo- reciprocity; it shares with participatory documentary of Young Leaders in the research the goal of being open and African communities dialogical, centering the experiences and  ‘In the Flesh’ (working title): writing voices of people who are marginalized about lives - intergenerational stories (Martín-Baró, 1994, Montero & Sonn, 2009). about identity and belonging with arts What’s in a Name: From Afrobeat to Amka. outputs of spoken word, storytelling A second distinct project illustrates the way and musical performances (live and in which we seek to be participatory and video) dialogical in centering the experiences of groups often silenced or misrepresented in mainstream media, political discourse, and The Australian Community Psychologist Volume 29 No 1 June 2018 © The Australian Psychological Society Ltd

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 ‘In the Spirit’ (working title): work with a broader project that we have intercultural dialogues with Aboriginal been pursuing with an international group Australians on place and country. (Stevens, Bell, Sonn, Clennon, & Canham, Critical conversations. My role has 2017), and with colleagues at VU into varied from mentor and critical friend, to meanings of Blackness in Australia (Smith, evaluator researcher, to co-researcher since I Sonn, & Cooper, in press). In this work, we first became involved with the group a few are investigating experiences of being black, years ago. I have provided support for some recognising that such experiences vary across of the staff through critical discussions about context, time, and place. Michelle Wright race and whiteness, and I have provided (2015) noted that blackness is not a matter of critical feedback on the art of radical asking what, but “about when and where it is listening workshops that the group has being imagined, defined, and performed and facilitated with Government organisations. in what locations, both figurative and These conversations are important ways of literal” (p. 3). The group was very positive connecting with local groups and bridging about these projects, so we agreed to move the gap between the university and the forward, and this meant getting ethics community. To date, we have had several approval and a research agreement in place. meetings with the broader group constituted Some time has passed and several key by the cultural workers and the manager of members of the group (all creative workers cohealth Arts Generator. who are also students at university or have While we initially discussed how we employment) have since travelled to various could complement the project by countries in Africa, and some have attended documenting it and gathering information to the decolonial summer school that is held inform the evaluation of the project, I floated annually at the University of South Africa, the possibilities for this project to follow a Pretoria. For those who attended the model of participatory and collaborative experience was significant, in fact, research. I attended several meetings and transformative and liberating. They spoke of provided input into a staged dinner major mind shifts, about a new awareness, conversation on the issue of race and and that they now have a language to name representation that emerged in relation to the their project, which until this time, was first part of the “Afrobeat” initiative. That constrained by a Manichean binary of black discussion raised many issues and challenges and white, colonised and coloniser, and with including the young people expressing the title “Afrobeat”. Through various critical concerns about an ostensibly white and reflective conversations, deeper and photographer re-presenting images of them. more profound discussion happened This discussion pointed to race and spontaneously as they began to share stories whiteness, and signaled deeper ethical and of their re-imagined and renamed project, political matters related to voice, one that recognises and acknowledges representation, and agency and its Indigenous peoples and their knowledges, implications for differently positioned social Aboriginal sovereignty, their/our positions as actors within Australia’s racialised social settlers of colour in Australia. This shift in system. gaze, of centering Indigenous people and The conversation also showed the their own speaking positions is a decolonial diverse ways in which the young people of action. The project was no longer tentatively African ancestry constructed their social and named Afrobeat: the group have done some cultural identities in Australia. Subsequent to deep thinking and have proposed to the these discussions, I drafted a document manager of cAG that they want to pursue a proposing that we conduct a participatory decolonial agenda through the project, as case study that would capture the well as within the broader organisation and development and delivery of the second specifically in relation to the project. component of the project – called “In the Flesh” at the time. At the next meeting we had, I presented the proposal and linked the The Australian Community Psychologist Volume 29 No 1 June 2018 © The Australian Psychological Society Ltd

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The first part of their critical action practices, and have been important for was the act of renaming the project and contesting epistemological ignorance and producing a new vision and mission promoting cognitive justice (Santos, 2007). statement for it. This was a significant These tasks entail deconstructing dominance moment. The group discussed questions and while normalising the worldviews and experiences that were wide ranging, experiences of the other (Adams et al., including, racism, othering, being third 2015), which is an important goal of culture young people, oppression, imagining decoloniality: to expand our ways of new futures beyond the coloniality of knowing, doing and being (Fanon, 1967; whiteness, and importantly, connecting with Santos, 2007). their communities and the global African In our community-engaged projects, diaspora and other cultures. In many ways, which include engaging with Indigenous the discussion signaled transgression, and the agendas through Indigenous-led research, we expression of place-making within the are being careful to respond to whose African diaspora reflective of rich social and questions we address, whose perspectives cultural histories and their own complex count, and what knowledge counts. We are subjectivities (Agung-Igusti, 2017). This was looking for new and alternative ways to one of the many intentional dialogues, each broaden knowledge production processes in person giving meaning to their engagement critical community-engaged inquiry. This has through decoloniality, expressing ways in included finding new roles such as critical which they, as cultural workers, are seeking friend, mentor, evaluator and researcher as to claim their place in the world through their well as using methods to support the goals activist art and creative practice, as well as and aspirations of groups who are often claiming a speaking position, to assert who excluded from knowledge production they are in the world. The group decided that processes. These groups include the decoloniality was going to be the basis for community agencies and the various people their project named Amka, which in Swahili that they support in their pursuit of health means to rise up or arise. This act of naming, and wellbeing, valued identities and reclaiming, and grounding the project in their supportive communities. We are also seeking own lived experiences and community and to find ways to provide psychosocial support cultural histories was a decolonising act, an and education, to create and participate in empowered act. community conversations about issues, to Summary and Conclusion speak about difficult questions and sit in There has been a growing number of spaces with vulnerability and discomfort. I calls for more radical and politically oriented concur with Watkins and Shulman (2008) community research and action (Dutta et al., when they say that: 2016; Evans et al., 2017; Fine, 2012). One of Liberation research is provisional. Its the strands of these calls is the turn to results do not seek to be overly decoloniality along with the powerful call for generalized or to make the kind of decolonising methodologies (Smith, universal truth claims that natural 1999/2012). For our group, our engagement science has accustomed us to. It with calls for decolonial work is reflected in actively acknowledges the local our efforts to enact research and knowledge context of most of its efforts. In some production alongside community groups and ways, it is a humble enterprise, self- to collaborate with those who are typically conscious, self-correcting, and excluded or problematised. Over time, we confessing of limitation. We place have articulated a decolonising standpoint aside what we already know so that that draws from various areas of critical we can learn from what comes scholarship, including critical studies of race forward as new, surprising, and and whiteness studies and Indigenous contradicting of our assumptions and studies. These areas bring into focus the biases. (p. 297) dynamics of power in our research and

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As applied social and community Atkinson, J., Nelson, J., Brooks, R., psychologists we have roles to play in Atkinson, C., & Ryan, K. (2014). different settings, to be listeners, to Addressing individual and community document stories, to record oral histories and transgenerational trauma. Working testimonies, to help create new ways of together: Aboriginal and Torres Strait knowing, based on relational ethics and that Islander mental health and wellbeing can help produce supportive cultures rather principles and practice, 2, 289-307. than exclusionary cultures. Australian Human Rights Commission. As I reflect on these projects in the (2010). In our own words. African context of critical community psychologies, Australians: A review of human rights and as well as the virulent racism that continues social inclusion issues. Retrieved from to affect lives in Australia and elsewhere, the https://www.humanrights.gov.au/sites/ need for critical community engaged default/files/content/africanau/review/ research as action becomes even more in_our_own_words.pdf pressing. It is vital to support communities in Ahluwalia, P. (2001). When does a settler their pursuits for self-determination and to become a native? Citizenship and identity make visible the ways in which they resist, in a settler society. Pretexts: Literary and survive and create meaningful lives within Cultural Studies, 10(1), 63-73. hostile contexts. This requires new Baak, M. (2011). Murder, community talk approaches and epistemologies, rooted in a and belonging: An exploration of relational ethics, one that affirms the ways of Sudanese community responses to murder being and knowing of communities who are in Australia. African Identities, 9(4), 417- marginalised and excluded (Dutta et al., 434. 2016). It is also equally imperative to tackle Baak, M. (2018). Racism and othering for the coloniality of power and whiteness to South Sudanese heritage students in make visible, contest, and challenge the Australian schools: Is inclusion possible? discursive and material practices through International Journal of Inclusive which it finds expression in everyday ways Education, 1-17. in institutions, community settings, and Balla, P., McCallum, D., Sonn, C., Jackson, social life. K., McKenna, T., Marion, C. (2009). Interventions in Aboriginal Child References Removal in Melbourne's West: A Scoping Adams, G., Dobles, I., Gómez, L. H., Kurtiș, Study, Melbourne: ARACY. T. & Molina, L. E. (2015). Decolonizing Boyer, E. L. (1996). The scholarship of psychological science: Introduction to the engagement. Journal of Public Service special thematic section. Journal of and Outreach, 1, 1, 11-20. Social and Political Psychology, 3(1), 213 Bulhan, H. A. (1985). Frantz Fanon and the –238. doi:10.5964/jspp.v3i1.564 psychology of oppression. New York, NY: Agung-lgusti, R. P. (2017). "I'm forming a Plenum Press. new identity because there is no two of Çakal, H., Eller, A., Sirlopú, D., & Pérez, A. me": Narratives of identity from the (2016). Intergroup Relations in Latin African Diaspora in Melbourne, Australia America: Intergroup contact, common (Unpublished Honours Thesis). Victoria ingroup identity, and activism among University, Melboure, Australia. Indigenous groups in Mexico and Chile. Ahluwalia, P. (2001). When does a settler Journal of Social Issues, 72(2), 355-375. become a native? Citizenship and identity Coimbra, J. L., Duckett, P., Fryer, D., in a settler society. Pretexts: Literary and Makkawi, I., Menezes, I., Seedat, M., & Cultural Studies, 10(1), 63-73. Walker, C. (2012). Rethinking community psychology: Critical insights. The Australian Community Psychologist, 24 (2), 135-142.

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Reich S.M., Riemer M., Prilleltensky I., Walker, R., Schultz, C., & Sonn, C. (2014). Montero M. (Eds) (2007). International Cultural competence: Transforming Community Psychology. Boston, MA: policy, services, programs and practice. In Springer, P. Dudgeon, H. Milroy, & R. Walker. Reyes Cruz, M., & Sonn, C. C. (2015). (De) (Eds.), Working together: Aboriginal and colonizing culture in community Torres Strait Islander mental health and psychology: Reflections from critical wellbeing principles and practice (2nd ed) social science. In R. D. Goodman & P. C. (pp. 195-220). Barton, ACT: Gorski (Eds.), Decolonizing Commonwealth of Australia. “multicultural” counseling through social Watkins, M., & Shulman, H. (2008). Toward justice (pp. 127-145). New York, NY: psychologies of liberation. New York: Springer. doi 10.1007/978-1-4939-1283- Palgrave Macmillan. 4_10 Wright, M. M. (2015). Physics of blackness. Santos, B. (2007). Beyond abyssal thinking: Minnesota, Mpls: University of Minnesota From global lines to ecologies of Press. knowledge. Date Accessed:1.10.2017. Retrieved from: http:// Note www.eurozine.com/beyond-abyssal- I A version of this paper was presented as an thinking/ opening address to the 13th Trans-Tasman Seedat, M. & Suffla, S. (2017). Community Conference in Community Psychology psychology and its (dis)contents, archival held in Parkville, Australia in April 2017 legacies and decolonization. South African Journal of Psychology, 47(4), 421-431 Address for correspondence Smith, L. T. (1999/2012). Decolonizing [email protected] methodologies: Research and Indigenous peoples, (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Zed Acknowledgements Books. Thank you to all the members of the CIDRN Smith, K., Sonn, C., & Cooper, T. (in press). and the discussion group for their Being Black in Australia. In C. Boyce contributions to a vibrant community of Davies (Ed), The General History of learning at VU. Thanks also to my Africa, VOL. IX, Book II, Paris: colleagues Amy Quayle, Urmitappa Dutta, UNESCO. Sam Keast, Rama Agung-Igusti, and Julie Stratton, J. (2011). Uncertain lives: Culture, van den Eynde for providing me with race and neoliberalism in Australia. New feedback on drafts of this paper. Castle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge

Scholars Publishing. Author Biography Sonn, C. C., Quayle, A. F., Mackenzie, C., & Law, S. F. (2014). Negotiating belonging Christopher C. Sonn, PhD, is an Associate in Australia through storytelling and Professor in Community Psychology at encounter. Identities: Global Studies in Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia on Culture and Power, 21(5), 551-569. the land of the Wurundjeri of the Kulin nation. His research examines forms of Stevens, G., Duncan, N., & Hook, D. (2013). structural violence such as racism, its effects Race, memory, and the Apartheid Archive. on social identities, intergroup relations and Johannesburg, South Africa: Wits belonging, and individual and group University Press. responses that are protective, resistant and Stevens, G., Bell, D., Sonn, C., Canham, H., resilient. He draws on participatory, creative & Clennon, O., (2017). Transnational and arts-based approaches to community perspectives on black subjectivity. South research and action. African Journal of Psychology, 47 (4),

459-469.