Marisela Montenegro

Ideology and Community Social Psychology: Theoretical Considerations and Practical Implications

This paper addresses the importance of the concept of ideology in community work. The implications of a Marxist approach to ideology in community practice are analyzed in terms of the concepts of problematization (P. Freire, 1979) and consciousness-raising (J. Barreiro, 1976), illustrating the point with some examples. The traditional Marxist perspective is also examined in relation to the perspectives of social constructionism (I. Ibáñez, 1996), cultural studies (A. McRobbie, 1992), post-Marxism (E. Laclau & C. Mouffe, 1985), and feminism (D. Haraway, 1991). It is argued that the concepts of hegemony and habitus (P. Bourdieu, 1985) can be useful to community social psychology theory and practice. A “situated perspective”—in which it is possible to dialogue from different “subject positions,” and articulate transformation and political action—is argued. The implications of this shifting in the concept of ideology by means of theoretical developments outside social community psychology can help to define the external (outside) agents position in community practice.

Los límites de la métafora lingüística: implicaciones de una perspectiva corporeizada para la práctica investigadora e interventora

Perspectivas como el construccionismo social, el analisis del discurso o el analisis conversacional, han usado la metafora linguistica paca defender una concepcion de la realidad construida a traves de la interaccion linguistica. En el desarrollo de esta metafora confluyen das herencias que han dado lugar a la omision de la corporeidad cama forma de conocimiento y agencia. En primer lugar, la division cartesiana entre cuerpo y alma; de la cual resulta una vision del cuerpo o bien como “contenedor” del alma o como producto de una construccion cognitivo/social. En segundo lugar, la aposicion “social” frente a «natural» excluyo al cuerpo (asignado al ambito de lo natural) como tema importante en debates sobre el orden y el control social. La metafora linguistica enfatiza el polo de lo social-mental que lleva a un monismo antologico de caracter linguistico. La corporeidad acaba siendo receptora de y disciplinada por el ambito de lo discursivo (Sampson. 1996; Nightingale. 1999). Este trabajo recoge el renovado interes que la corporeidad esta teniendo en ciencias sociales (i.e. Haraway, 1991) Turner 1992; Shilling 1993; Stam 1998; Burkitt, 1999) y explora las implicaciones que se derivan de la adopcion de uno perspectiva corporeizada en las practicas de investigacion e intervencion. Desde esta perspectiva se enfatiza el caracter productivo de las relaciones constituidas en procesos de investigacion e intervencion, entendidas como actividades que articulan multiples posiciones corporeizadas desde las que se localizan y producen conocimientos.

Investigación crítica : desafíos y posibilidades

Resumen es: La emergencia de las ciencias sociales esta ligada a la constitucion de una red de tecnologias, conocimientos, practicas y discursos para regular y gob...

MDGs in a Global World Gender Equity and Empowerment in Service Provision for Migrant Women in Barcelona

In this article we reflect upon the relationship between the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) formulated by the United Nations (2000) and the migration phenomena that is characteristic of the present globalised society. First, we argue that the Millennium Goals have not sufficiently considered migration processes as a structural phenomenon. Development goals must take in account this emergent phenomenon in post-industrial societies in order to achieve human rights and social equity and to promote the well-being of all people in their origin and host societies. Second, by interpreting the results of an ethnographic study carried out in social services aimed at migrant women in the city of Barcelona, while focusing on the 3rd Millennium Goal: gender equity and the empowerment of women, we reflect on the limits and possibilities of these intervention practices in advancing towards the goal in host societies. We conclude that changes in public policy and social services are necessary in order to advance towards the achievement of the gender equity goal and empowerment of women, a transformation that aims at the achievement of citizenship for all people in this global society.

Memory sites: Visiting experiences in Santiago de Chile:

Studies on Chilean memory sites have focused on the spaces created to remember the human rights abuses carried out during the dictatorship. However, the ways in which people experience and appropriate these readings of the past have received scarce attention. In this article, we explore how individuals who were not victims of human rights abuses experience two memory sites in Santiago, Chile: Villa Grimaldi and Londres 38. Following the premise that memory emerges as a product of semiotic and material assembling materialized in the interaction between sites and visitors, we analyze the relationship between the memory sites’ suggested readings of the past and the experiences of the public. We argue that this experience allows visitors to connect past atrocities with broader social discourses circulating in Chile in the form of abstract knowledge. This requires visitors to assume a position in relation to different historical accounts, allowing specific reconfigurations of collective memory to emerge.

Editorial introduction: Towards a transnational feminism: Dialogues on feminisms and psychologies in a Latin American context

This Special Feature is dedicated to some of the feminist work that is currently taking place in Latin American psychology. Our aim is to provide a space for the expression and debate of some current issues in the region so as to widen access to these developments in research and activism. It is by no means an attempt to present a ‘representative sample’ of all that has been done. There is, undoubtedly, enormous diversity in the circumstances and conditions of the different locations. Mendoza (2002: 309) has argued that ‘to speak of Latin American feminisms as a whole must also be seen mainly as an analytical construct, an ideal type that does not reflect in any manner an empirical reality’. However, the Latin American grouping does respond to a common socio-historical construction. Latin American feminisms, like those in many other parts of the world, have been characterized by their activism, as well as their critique of knowledge

National construction and LGBTI rights: Exploring Catalan homonationalism

Homonationalism offers a conceptual framework that allows us to understand the assimilation of the struggle for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) rights by national exceptionalism in the constitution of a geopolitical colonial differentiation. In light of recent developments, both in terms of national identity and LGBTI legal rights, we carried out a case study on Catalonia through the analytical tool of homonationalism, using different public documents as well as narrative productions. Through this analysis, we identified three rhetorical figures that the homonationalist discourse adopts in the Catalan case: territorial differentiations, political differentiations and ethnic differentiations.

Bordering, exclusions and necropolitics

Contemporary governmentality combines biopolitical and necropolitical logics to establish social, political and physical borders that classify and stratify populations using symbolic and material marks as, for example, nationality, gender, ethnicity, race, sexuality, social class and/or disability. The social sciences have been prolific in the analysis of alterities and, in turn, implicated in the epistemologies and knowledge practices that underpin and sustain the multiplication of frontiers that define essential differences between populations. The purpose of this paper is to develop a strategy that analyze and subvert the logic of bordering inherent in the bio/necropolitical gaze. In different ways, this paper examines operations of delimitation and differentiation that contribute to monolithic definitions of subject and subjectivity.,The authors question border construction processes in terms of their static, homogenizing and exclusionary effects.,Instead of hierarchical stratification of populations, the papers in this special issue explore the possibilities of relationship and the conditions of such relationships. Who do we relate to? On which terms and conditions? With what purpose? In which ethical and political manner?,A critical understanding of the asymmetry in research practices makes visible how the researcher is legitimized to produce a representation of those researched, an interpretation of their words and actions without feedback or contribution to the specific context where the research has been carried out. Deconstructive and relational perspectives are put forward as critical strands that can set the basis of different approaches to research and social practice.