BME psychology

 

Psychology: A history of racism

logoPsychology has a racist history. There are many examples: how the British Psychological Society’s early presidents had explicit ties to the eugenics movement. Or how Black civil rights activists were forcibly incarcerated under the pretense they were schizophrenic and “paronoid against the police” (Metzl, 2011). Or how intelligence research by psychologists was originally used to show Black people and immigrants should not have the same legal, political or social rights as more intelligent whites (see Phillippe Rushton’s work published in 1990 by The Psychologist). Continue reading

6 reasons why we have an International Women’s Day

~Glen Jankowski
@EmmaKennedy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As critical psychologists, we need to be critical of sexism. Days like International Working Women’s Day remind us of the importance of feminism. Here’s 6 other reasons why we need International Women’s Day.
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Qualitative Methods in Psychology (QMiP) conference – a safe space for qual researchers (immediately before ISCHP 2017!)

By Sarah Riley, QMiP 2017 Conference Chair (edited by Gareth Treharne)

Details of conference: https://www.bps.org.uk/events/conferences/qualitative-methods-psychology-section-bi-annual-conference-2017

“Conferences are liturgical celebrations, affirmations of solidarity, symbolic spaces for those who speak a language (whether socialism or orthodontics) unintelligible to most of their fellow-humans, and who therefore need from time to time to relax with those of their own kind, as a cross-dresser might feel the gathering urge to withdraw from the world of the bank or bakery and ease into a pair of corsets” Terry Eagleton The Gatekeeper

Being amongst kind is important for all academics. But when it came to organising the British Psychology Society’s Qualitative Methods in Psychology (QMiP) conference in 2017 this need felt particularly salient. To this end, QMiP’s aims have been to provide a safe space as well as an exciting space.

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The post PhD-thesis-submission funk

Aleksandra A Staneva, University of Queensland, Australia; a.staneva@uq.edu.au

ThesisIt has been 1 month, 17 days, and 3 hours since I submitted my PhD thesis.

A PhD study involves an interesting and unexpectedly non-linear process. Non-linear, because it does not happen independently, in a vacuum; on the contrary, it happens while life unfolds with all its messiness. People move, die, give birth etc. whilst your PhD demands your time regardless.

The final stages of a PhD usually involve a ‘meta’ approach to everything. Everything you have discovered in order to not only synthesize, apply and polish the final product – the thesis, but also to make a contribution, to be able to answer the very first question that made you go for it in the first place: So what? Continue reading

Why write a blog post?

Kerry Chamberlain.

Some time ago, I was introduced to Dave Nicholls, Chair of the Critical Physiotherapy Network. The Critical Physiotherapy Network is an organisation which has a lot of synergies with ISCHP, and Dave and I met to discuss how our respective organisations managed membership and communication issues. In the course of our conversation, he commented about blog posts, how they are easy and quick to write, why people should do this more often, and why most people don’t. I took him up on this and asked him to write a post about it for our blog, which he promptly did. Read it below.

This post should inspire you to write for our blog and send it off to one of our Blog Editors or Blog Commissioning Editors – their addresses can be found on the Committee page.

Write about your own research, someone else’s research that you find interesting, a controversial health psychology topic that has your attention, or anything else that would be relevant for our members. Remember to look at the guidelines first!

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Photo Credit
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Psychologists Against Austerity – call for Everyday Austerity stories

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We’re in the middle of a week of action against austerity led by Psychologists Against Austerity (PAA), are a group of psychologists that campaign against the UK government’s cuts to welfare and charity funding. PAA members use their knowledge on the evidence of the impact of austerity (see this recent review of austerity’s impact) as well as – for PAA clinicians – their knowledge of those with mental health problems – to demonstrate the increasing harm austerity is having on the UK population. Continue reading

What does ‘critical’ mean?

Charlotte Paddison_Photo_HeadCharlotte Paddison reflects on what it means to be ‘critical’ in the context of health psychology.  Is this about being dismissive?  About being negative?  No, not at all!

Lecturing is great.  And not least of all because you get all sorts of interesting questions from students.   Recently, I was asked what does being ‘critical’ mean?

Being ‘critical’ can mean different things to different people, in different contexts.  The Oxford dictionary describes it as “expressing adverse or disapproving comments or judgements” and “involving an analysis of the merits and faults of a work.”  Neither of these quite fit the bill for describing critical perspectives in the context of health psychology. Continue reading

The regulation of the Black body – Marvina Newton’s Keynote at Gendered Bodies in Visible Spaces day

Marvina NewtonMarvina Newton is a Leeds-based activist who founded the charity Angels of Youth and is a board member of Nigerian Community Leeds. Her work focuses on helping diasdvantaged kids through community and participatory projects spanning justice issues such as climate change, racism, mental health issues and sexism. She gave a keynote at the Gendered Bodies in Visbile Spaces at Leeds Beckett University in June 2015 (see poster below). Her talk concerned the way in which Black women’s bodies are regulated including through skin bleaching and hair relaxing.

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Is there such a thing as mixed epistemology research?

Is there such a thing as mixed epistemology research?  ~Gareth Treharne (gtreharne@psy.otago.ac.nz)

Mixed methods research is a well-established feature of many fields of social science research, including health psychology (shameless plug: see Treharne & Riggs, 2014). That’s not to say that all social science researchers (or readers) value mixed methods research – indeed, the notion of mixing methods might be hotly debated by some critical health psychologists and lead them to ask questions such as:

By mixed methods, do you only mean a mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods? Surely we should be more interested in innovative mixtures of qualitative methods?

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Martin Luther King: “I am proud to be maladjusted”.

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The civil rights leader Martin Luther King addressed the American Psychological Association at UCLA in 1967 at the APA’s Washington Conference in 1967:

It is particularly a great privilege to discuss these issues with members of the academic community, who are constantly writing about and dealing with the problems that we face and who have the tremendous responsibility of molding the minds of young men and women all over the country.

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Mattel’s new Barbies aren’t so good for their sweatshops makers

This is a cross post from here

So this week Matel announced its range of 33 new Barbie dolls. There’s a tall Barbie, a curvy Barbie and a little Barbie. Curvy Barbie has thicker thighs and a slightly protruding stomach. The 33 dolls also have 7 skin tones between them, including a dark skinned Black Barbie with natural hair. Progress? Not for the women making them.

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Image: Mattel/EPA

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“These Things”: An example of using creative methods in critical health research

by David Carless and Kitrina Douglas

abstract aspens“These Things” was written following an ethnographic research project, commissioned by the Addiction Recovery Agency and St Monica Trust, that sought to understand the experiences of residents and support staff of an urban local authority “elderly preferred” housing scheme. The scheme contained twenty-five self-contained flats, grouped under one roof, sharing an entrance, corridors, washing and communal room. The residents, aged 50 and over, comprised a diverse range of nationalities who had come to the housing scheme through varied and often complex life events. The support staff, a small group of female carers and mobile wardens, were charged with the responsibility of meeting residents care and support needs and maintaining the building. The research took place in the wake of a major recession and unprecedented cuts to services with the future of the housing scheme – along with the homes of the residents and livelihoods of the support staff – hanging in the balance.

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Why I use pictures of my cats in presentations: Gareth Treharne

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I love the internet because it contains an endless supply of articles to read and pictures of cats to share. If you’re a friend of mine on Facebook or have ever heard me give a talk you’ll probably be more familiar with my cats than my writing. Cats make me happy. Oh, and writing does too. We all have things that can make us happy, even the cynics and the stressed amongst us I hope. But you may ask what have cats and the transient affect of happiness got to do with critical health psychology?
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