The Columbus, GA Community Arts and Music Collective: Preparations for the Long Haul Introduction In previous papers, the creation and planning of the Columbus, GA Arts and Music community initiative has been explored in depth. In this paper, the long-term existence of this project will be explored through the following areas: sustainability, maintaining gains achieved, approaches to support well-being, and acknowledging and celebrating gains and victories. While this… Read More
Planning a Community Arts and Music Collective in Columbus, GA Introduction Members of the Columbus, GA community continue to inform me that an arts and music collective is vitally needed. Yet, some of them continue to cite examples of independent music and arts businesses (independent from the mainstream cultural institutions in Columbus and the surrounding community) that have failed in the recent and distant past. … Read More
An Undeveloped Opportunity: Initiating a Community Arts and Music Collective in Columbus, GA Introduction Columbus, Georgia is a city of abundant opportunities for the future and a city with a profusion of missed opportunities in the past. While this is obviously the case with economic and career options, exploring the city also reveals few opportunities for artistic self-expression for anyone. There are occasions to view traveling artistic culture… Read More
Personal Reflections on My Role within Unconquered Minds and a Critique of Minkler & Hancock’s Community health assessment or healthy community assessment: Whose community? Whose health? Whose assessment? Understanding Health, Community, and Community Health How health, community, and community health are examined, utilized, and defined depend upon the representatives of the community involved. All are key, all are vital, and all are based upon the perspective of key individuals and groups. A politician will obviously differ from a health care provider, a social… Read More
Reflections on Jackson & Volckens’ Community stressors and racism and Minkler’s Introduction to community organizing and community building I appreciate the idea that we are studying a practical, on-the-ground-activist-map and an academic and analytical one. The readings of Minkler’s (2006) case studies and Jackson & Volckens (1998) illustrate this very well. While Jackson’s “reverberation theory of stress and racism” as it occurs in both the dominant political majority group and throughout the subgroup… Read More
Reflections on Pilisuk & Parks’ The healing web, Flower’s Building healthy cities, and Flower’s Healthy cities – healthy communities Opening up Pilisuk and Parks (1986), the first thought that came to mind is that laughter is the best medicine. Given that healthy and supportive community is necessary for our physical and emotional health and well-being, this should be obvious to most. Even though Pilisuk and Parks temper their remarks, cautioning us “not to generalize… Read More
Reflections On Hacker & Roberts’ Transformational leadership Chapters 7 and 8, Participatory Feminism, and Selected Writings on Feminism and Liberation Psychology I know there are” ideal” companies to work for, not because I have worked for them (because I haven’t), but because very few friends have mentioned their work environments and their ideal supervisors and because I have read about them occasionally in the news pages. But now that I have read Hacker and Robert’s analysis… Read More
Reflections On Diaz’ A psychological framework for social justice praxis, Teo et al’ Philosophical reflexivity in social justice work, and Hacker & Roberts’ Transformational leadership Chapters 5 and 6 I see the potential for perpetual personal evolution and perhaps personal revolution within Diaz’s summary, “. . . a relational/empathy based concept of social justice provides us with an interpretation of social justice as the perpetual process of creating and recreating relationships of awareness, empathy, and empowerment.” I see this either as the direction that… Read More
Reflections On Friere’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Martin-Baro’s Role of the Psychologist, Prillitensky’s Value-based praxis in community psychology (And Personal Reflections On Things I Consider Important) While much has been said and much has been written about scientific objectivity and, in the case of my experience in local television journalism, much has been said regarding journalistic objectivity, sometimes quite passionately to the detriment of the local issues being discussed. Both have their place, but I have never really understood why there… Read More
Reflections On Bronfenbrenner’s “Toward An Experimental Ecology Of Human Development” Nelson and Prillitensky’s Ecology, Prevention, and Promotion In this article as I interpret it, Bronfenbrenner argues that the sciences that relate to human development in theory, method, and substance, are generally caught and placed in a box to verify stringent ideas of what it means to evolve and develop as a human. Bronfenbrenner is correct in pointing out the limited significance of… Read More