Twenty-first International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

This paper examines the complex dynamics emerging in a farm labor campaign observed on California’s Central Coast over three years. Reporting on a case study that brought into play methods for evaluating social change and shifting power relationships, the author elucidates both local and global perspectives, drawing on epistemologies from the global north and south, engaging underrepresented populations in participatory action research and assessing her findings through depth-psychological and eco-psychological lenses. By expanding the scope of community psychology, this exploration of new directions in the humanities hopes to contribute to a better understanding of the bio-politics around immigration and their perduring colonial legacies and, ultimately, point to new ways of meaning-making among polarized populations in search of common ground in the twenty-first century.

Presenters

Renate Funke
Community Initiatives Facilitator, working with underrepresented populations, PhD from Pacifica Graduate Institute in Community, Liberation, Indigenous, and Eco-Psychology, self-employed, former college administrator, California, United States