Critical health and neurodivergent awareness

By Kathryn McGuigan

Neurodivergent awareness week internationally was March 13-19 (www.neurodiversityweek.com). This was a week to celebrate neurological differences, to raise awareness of the strengths and challenges that neurodivergent face.

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Insiders, outsiders, and insider-outsiders: Navigating positionality in community-based research

By Gloria Fraser

When asked about my sexual orientation I tend to hesitate, offering up an answer ranging from a firm “straight” to a questioning “pretty much straight?”, depending on who I’m with. It’s become a joke amongst my friends—after years of doing research as a (mostly?) straight cisgender woman about rainbow peoples’ experiences and wellbeing, I’ve become less sure of my answer over time. And maybe this is what we’d expect: that the more time we spend thinking about the labels people use to describe themselves, the more our own labels shift and change.

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Helen Kara calls for doing research as if our human participants mattered

By Helen Kara

crop psychologist taking notes during appointment
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Across all academic disciplines and beyond, the way research participants are conceptualized and treated by researchers is no longer fit for purpose. As well as using more appropriate terminology, such as ‘participant’ or (where appropriate) ‘co-researcher,’ in this post, Helen Kara suggests three other main ways in which we should offer more respect to the people who help us with our research.

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Psychology’s participatory problem and five things you can do right now to fix it!

By Brett Scholz

couple holding hands
Photo by Marcus Aurelius on Pexels.com

Critical health psychologists generally want to practice acts of allyship through and beyond their work. In this post, Brett Scholz presents a call to go beyond thinking of consumers as participants in your research practice, and to instead ensure you collaborate and engage with consumers in epistemic practices. 

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