Harnessing the Power of Ecopsychology in Community Work

Abstract

In this chapter we examine how an ecopsychology approach in wilderness settings can be intentionally applied to achieve goals and outcomes consonant with emancipatory community psychology values and objectives. We make use of a community project case study to illustrate the application of wilderness based intervention activities within a community based participatory action research (CBPAR) framework to foster community building initiatives. We describe how the Usiko Community Project used a CBPAR approach in a low-income peri-urban community to develop a wilderness intervention with youth participants as part of broader community building initiatives. The chapter draws from the fields of community psychology, adventure programming and ecopsychology, and the application of CBPAR as methodology, discusses the interplay between ecopsychology and community psychology values in the above contexts, and presents a critical engagement of the liberation capacities of this approach. Critical lessons in applying these approaches for community building derived from the authors’ experiences in the project are highlighted.