INTRODUCTION

A CHALLENGE FOR COMMUNITY RESEARCH AND ACTION: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE SPECIAL ISSUE
J. R. Newbrough and Paul W. Speer
Peabody College of Vanderbilt University

Raymond P. Lorion
Towson University

The crux of the thesis advanced in this special issue is that by merging the psychological with the political, community psychology can, and should, explicitly address social power. This thesis is advanced by Isaac Prilleltensky, who, in the lead article (pp. 116136), discusses the central role of power in research on wellness, oppression, and liberation. He has become concerned that the work of community psychology has little effect on the basic problems of humankind and further asserts that this limited impact is because the eld has not worked directly with power at the collective level. Empowerment, the elds major phenomena of interest, seems typically to be constrained in both denition and measurement at the person level. With the concept of psychopolitical validity, Prilleltensky proposes measuring the psychological and political simultaneously. When an intervention is validboth psychologically and politicallyhe hypothesizes that forces yielding ill-health and oppression will be diminished and those that enhance wellness and liberation will be increased. He offers two types of psychopolitical validity and describes how he would approach each empirically: Epistemic approaches integrate psychological and political power into community psychology studies; and transformative approaches move intervention beyond ameliorative efforts towards structural change. This conceptualization is set forward to share his thinking about what is central and important in community psychology. Psychopolitical validity is a strategy for bringing a research criterionvalidity into a substantive rather than just a methodological domain. That is, an important dimension to the validity of a research study is not just the process applied to studying
Correspondence to: J.R. Newbrough, Peabody ] 6, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37203. E-mail: bob.newbrough@vanderbilt.edu or paul.w.speer@vanderbilt.edu. JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGY, VOL. 36, NO. 2, 113115 (2008) Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). & 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. DOI: 10.1002/jcop.20224

114

Journal of Community Psychology, March 2008

a phenomenon of interest, but the ways in which it attends to how a substantive issue social poweris operating in the community settings studied. This assertion is offered by Prilleltensky as a tactic for addressing our historical struggles as a disciplineit is a call that is anchored in critical theory and to our elds fundamental essence of values and action. As we take stock of our elds impact on social change, our successes are dwarfed in the face of increasing health disparities, resegregation of schools and communities, mounting wealth inequities, and the expansion of violence locally and war globally. In the face of neoliberal political and economic policies at this historical juncture, Prilleltensky has proposed that the construct of psychopolitical validity can offer a way for Community Psychology to make more effective contributions to social change. For Prilleltensky, social change means increasing wellness, reducing oppression, and promoting liberation. Most people are supportive of such goals, but what is it about psychopolitical validity that can lead to such lofty ends? The history of community psychology has identied other admirable approaches for community psychology to more effectively create social change, such as competent community (Iscoe, 1974), sense of community (Sarason, 1974), the third position (Newbrough, 1995), social regularities (Seidman, 1990), and empowerment (Rappaport, 1981, 1987). Will psychopolitical validity be any more successful in leading our eld to social change than these other valuable constructs? This assertion is exciting, yet it surfaces a multitude of questions and dilemmas: Can we measure change? Can we measure change in the power structure? Can we make change in the power structure from our position in the academy? Importantly, psychopolitical validity is building on community psychologys important work on empowerment and explicitly moving it in the direction of community in a political, external, action-oriented direction. In this endeavor, we see Prilleltensky bridging some traditional critiques within our discipline through his construct. The major critique of empowerment has been that it has been psychological in the extreme, that is, an over-emphasis on a perception or sense of empowerment rather than a concrete or tangible manifestation of empowerment. By combining the psychological with the political, Prilleltensky explicitly elevates both. Psychopolitical validity demands that we attend to the psychological dimensions of people working in communities as well as the concrete and measurable expressions of social power and the way such social power becomes exercised through political machinations in everyday life. On the face of it, this seems a wholly appropriate avenue for community psychology to pursue. Nevertheless, the contributions that follow this hypothesis on psychopolitical validity begin to consider it more critically. Some contributions consider how psychopolitical validity might be applied (Christens & Perkins, pp. 214232; >Partridge, pp. 161172; Reich, Pinkard, & Davidson; pp. 173186; Speer, pp. 199213), others attempt to apply how the construct might address specic community problems (Jones & Dokecki, pp. 148160; Nation, pp. 187198; Williams, pp. 137147), and still others offer reections and critique on the construct from theoretical bases (Angelique, pp. 247254; Fisher & Sonn, pp. 262269; Fox, pp. 233238; Fryer, pp. 239246; Lorion & McMillan, pp. 255261). This special issue of the Journal provides for an examination of the construct of psychopolitical validity. Certainly, we all would like psychopolitical validity, no less than any other construct offered before, to be a device for improving our disciplines impact on the many pressures and problems of communitiesin the United States and throughout the globe. The contributions in this issue take different perspectives on
Journal of Community Psychology DOI: 10.1002/jcop

Introduction

115

psychopolitical validity as, collectively, they consider the possibility for this construct to lead to the promised land of social change. REFERENCES
Angelique, H.L. (2008). On power, psychopolitical validity, and play. Journal of Community Psychology, 36, 247254. Christens, B., & Perkins, D.D. (2008). Transdisciplinary, multilevel action research to enhance ecological and psycho-political validity. Journal of Community Psychology, 36, 214232. Fisher, A.T., & Sonn, C.C. (2008). Psychopolitical validity: Power, culture, and wellness. Journal of Community Psychology, 36, 262269. Fox, D. (2008). Confronting psychologys power. Journal of Community Psychology, 36, 233238. Fryer, D. (2008). Power from the people? Critical reection on a conceptualization of power. Journal of Community Psychology, 36, 239246. Iscoe, I. (1974). Community psychology and the competent community. American Psychologist, 29, 607613. Jones, D.L., & Dokecki, P.R. (2008). The spiritual dimensions of psychopolitical validity: The case of clergy sexual abuse crisis. Journal of Community Psychology, 36, 148160. Lorion, R.P., & McMillan, D.W. (2008). Does empowerment require disempowerment? Reections on psychopolitical validity. Journal of Community Psychology, 36, 255261. Nation, M. (2008). Concentrated disadvantage in urban neighborhoods: Psychopolitical validity as a framework for developing psychology-related solutions. Journal of Community Psychology, 36, 187198. Newbrough, J.R. (1995). Toward community: A third position. American Journal of Community Psychology, 23, 937. Partridge, W.L. (2008). Praxis and power. Journal of Community Psychology, 36, 161172. Prilleltensky, I. (2008). The role of power in wellness, oppression, and liberation: The promise of psychopolitical validity. Journal of Community Psychology, 36, 116136. Rappaport, J. (1981). In praise of paradox: A social policy of empowerment over prevention. American Journal of Community Psychology, 9, 125. Rappaport, J. (1987). Terms of empowerment/exemplars of prevention: Toward a theory of community psychology. American Journal of Community Psychology, 15, 121148. Reich, S.M., Pinkard, T., & Dadson, H. (2008). Including history in the study of psychological and political power. Journal of Community Psychology, 36, 173186. Sarason, S.B. (1974). The psychological sense of community: Prospects for a community psychology. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Seidman, E. (1988). Back to the future, community psychology: Unfolding a theory of social intervention. American Journal of Community Psychology, 16, 324. Speer, P.W. (2008). Social power and forms of change: Implications for psychopolitical validity. Journal of Community Psychology, 36, 199213. Williams, B.N. (2008). From the outside looking in: The praxis dilemma of linking psychopolitical validity with community policing. Journal of Community Psychology, 36, 137147.

Journal of Community Psychology DOI: 10.1002/jcop