Critical, community and indigenous psychologies

To complement cross-cultural and cultural psychology, another identifiable strand in research into cultural issues in the study of human behaviour and experience comes from critical, community and indigenous psychologies. If cultural psychology is distinct because of its ideas about the culture–mind relationship, critical, community and indigenous psychologies is distinguished by what might be termed an activist stance regarding the aims and nature of psychological enquiry. Critical, community-oriented researchers practice goal-directed research with the aim of transforming situations of inequality and oppression. Critical community psychology is founded on the principle that research can be positively transformative. The transformative potential of psychological knowledge is a sleeping giant that motivates critical research.