title: Chasing rainbow notions: enacting community psychology in the classroom and beyond in post-1994 South Africa.
abstract: This paper discusses tensions and contradictions experienced by a group of psychologists in post-1994 South Africa as we struggled to develop an MA program in community psychology. Situating our work within the history of the subdiscipline and the historical context confronting South Africans in the "wake of apartheid," we explore models of community psychology that informed praxis under apartheid and contemporary challenges confronting a country in transition. We discuss three tensions that inform the ongoing program development. These include (1) the construction and deconstruction of Western and indigenous knowledge systems; (2) assessment and intervention at multiple levels and from differing value perspectives; and (3) paradoxes experienced by a team of university-educated, primarily White academic staff committed to challenging oppression. We conclude our discussion by suggesting that, within these shifting sands of economic, political, cultural, and institutional change community psychology must, of necessity, resist rigid self-definition and seek to position itself as a "work-in-progress." We suggest that this seemingly anomalous self-description may be suggestive for other community psychologists-in-the-making facing similar challenges within the majority world.
authors.affiliation: School of Human and Community Development, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. sibandat@umthombo.wits.ac.za
authors.forename: Thabani
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ngonyama ka Sigogo
authors.forename: Megan
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hooper
authors.forename: Carol
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Long
authors.forename: M Brinton
authors.initials: MB
authors.lastname: Lykes
authors.forename: Kenneth
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Wilson
authors.forename: Estelle
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Zietkiewicz
mesh_terms: D003156:Community Mental Health Services / Q000458:organization & administration*; D003256:Community Participation; D003158:Community Psychiatry / Q000193:education* / Q000266:history / Q000379:methods; D003376:Counseling / Q000193:education; D004500:Education, Graduate / Q000379:methods*; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D019359:Knowledge; D008960:Models, Psychological; D019982:Organizational Case Studies; D011287:Prejudice; D016730:Program Development; D011593:Psychology, Social / Q000193:education* / Q000266:history / Q000379:methods; D012922:Social Change; D012933:Social Identification; D013019:South Africa