Volume 9, Number 1, 2023

EN:

Tools for Peace (T4P) was a grassroots campaign in the 1980s that mobilized Canadians in every province and territory from diverse walks of life and extended large quantities of material support to Nicaragua’s Sandinista revolution. Despite having been recognized by the Nicaraguan state as one of the most important international solidarity efforts of the Sandinista era, T4P has received strikingly little scholarly attention. The paper analyzes 27 interviews with Tools for Peace participants that were conducted in the mid-1980s for an anthology that was never published, the transcripts of which are now found in the public archives at McMaster University. The interviewees’ words evoke the moods, sentiments, and dispositions that animated T4P. Weaving scholar-activism with arts-informed inquiry, this paper presents those sentiments in a series of found poems that seek to both engage and inspire their readers. Through these poems, the paper evokes the experiential and affective dimensions of international solidarity as it was enacted through this novel historical experience. We suggest that T4P was exemplary of the spirit of solidarity in the global movement in support of the Sandinista revolution, but also unique in its Canadian-ness, leading us to advocate a definition of international solidarity that emphasizes its situatedness, together with its experiential and affective dimensions.

EN:

Reflecting on pedagogy and curricula that have shaped the field of community psychology, we review the history of training community psychologists since the field’s inception in the United States. We then examine relevant academic literature documenting how digital technologies in the 21st century have been successfully used in community-based participatory research (CBPR) studies conducted by community psychologists to promote engaged scholarship, the field’s core values (e.g. sense of community, social justice, collaboration), and its commitment to social change. While early ideas for improving scholars’ training emphasized adopting practices to meet changing community needs, our review of literature on CBPR and other community-engaged scholarly work by community psychologists in the last two decades has revealed that digital technologies’ ability to promote the field’s values and goals still needs to be fully harnessed. Lastly, we offer practical recommendations for community psychology undergraduate and graduate training programs to consider and implement so they can incorporate digital technologies into their programs and harness their potential to promote engaged scholarship, the field’s core values, and its commitment to social change.

EN:

This article profiles the professional identities of two postsecondary staff leading the adaptation and adoption of the elective Carnegie Classification for Community Engagement in their institutions in Australia and Canada. It explores the tensions and frustrations, as well as opportunities, experienced by these “third space” or “community engagement professional” staff, who often struggle to find recognition of the value of their work within their institution. These staff portraits point to two sources of both personal and institutional misrecognition of community engagement professionals and the community engagement practice more generally: gender intersecting with race, and the relegation of community engagement to an external relations function that runs parallel to the core academic purposes of the institution.

EN:

Reports of hate crimes in Canada have increased by 72% from 2019 to 2021 (Moreau, 2022). Hate crimes harm those directly victimized and members of targeted communities (Erentzen & Schuller, 2020; Perry & Alvi, 2011). Many Canadian stakeholders advocate for increased community engagement in preventative and responsive interventions to this increasing concern. This article poses that Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) is an appropriate approach for further exploring hate crimes and incidents and suggests strategies for this area of study, including: building community partnerships; advocating for trauma-informed practices; prioritizing cultural humility and intersectionality; preparing for lengthy pre-participation communication with potential participants; anticipating out-of-scope volunteer participants; and accounting for unanticipated actions of participants.

EN:

Community advisory boards (CAB) or groups (CAG) are frequently included in qualitative community-based research (CBR), particularly in the early phases of assessing need, impact, and design of a research project. Projects with emancipatory, liberatory, or decolonial emphases include CAGs in the spirit of inclusivity, representation, transformation, truth-telling, and participation, but the methodological value and impact of such groups often remains under-explored in reports about the research. It is also relatively uncommon to use CAGs in quantitative research. In our survey research about post-secondary instructors’ experiences of receiving student disclosures of gender-based violence, we used a time-limited, task-specific CAG to assist with survey development. In this report from the field, we discuss our approach to the inclusion of a CAG in our research, which emphasized reciprocity and accountability to community, and we explore how the use of a CAG directly impacted and strengthened the quantitative study.

EN:

This report from the field provides reflection on the author’s experience of co-authoring a peer-reviewed manuscript with community partners for publication in an academic journal. The report reflects on the existential, logistical, and process-related challenges of applying community-based research and delivering its promise of knowledge co-creation while grappling with inequities imbedded in the realities of academic and non-academic life. Reflecting on the lessons learned, this paper probes into further considerations for the operationalization of ethical principles for equitable collaboration in community-based research.