Community psychology and the crisis of care
Nick Malherbe
Abstract
In addition to the twinned crises of ecology and political economy, we face today a crisis of care. The crisis of care, I contend, is fundamentally a political and an ethical crisis. In this short commentary, I outline the structural (i.e., systemic) and reproductive (i.e., labour) character of this crisis, using the COVID-19 pandemic as an example. From here, I argue for the imperative to centre an expansive conception of care in critical community psychology work. Specifically, I posit that by working with and alongside activist care workers, community psychologists can assist in building socially just modalities of care. After reflecting on my work with collective caring initiatives, I offer five (tentative) guiding principles for a community psychology that is committed to addressing the crisis of care, namely: (1) commitment to building political coalitions; (2) commitment to refuting capitalist conceptions of care; (3) commitment to expanding conceptions of care; (4) commitment to embracing the psychological consequences of care work; and (5) a politicoethical commitment.