Programme

PART I

14:15-14:35 | Talk: Psychologies Otherwise/Earthwise: Thinking-Feeling-Listening with (the) Earth
Wade E. Pickren, PhD

I propose this talk as a contribution to emerging transition discourses that have their origins in both the Global South and Global North and seek to address interlinked environmental, racial, and social justice crises. My work is guided by the question: How can humans and other than human beings have lives and futures based on living in deep recognition of our mutual interdependence and the co-constitution of all on the Earth? That is, I propose that we create a new commons characterized by reciprocity and cooperation, with beings human and otherwise connected in ways both visible and invisible. Such a cosmology requires a corresponding earth-oriented psychology; a psychologyotherwise and Earthwise. I lay out my desire for a new/old cosmology as a foundation for addressing our crises. I draw on the Zapatista wisdom of Worlds and Knowledges Otherwise that inculcates pluriversality and its many worlds. In this cosmology, the register is marked by a relational ontology that may help us create a regenerative epistemology to address the crises we face. 

As an example, I present a current project that is growing to involve many other contributors. It is entitled, Thinking-Feeling-Listening with (the) Earth. Through the use of creative expressions—brief texts (essays, narratives, poetry, etc) along with images (photographs, videos, drawings, sketches, etc) and soundscapes—we seek to draw people into a deeper awareness of their relationship with Earth. To facilitate, if you will, a deep sense of mutuality, what I refer to as a sociosensual mutuality, that will create closer bonds for humans and other than human beings as members of this living Earth. 

14:35-14:55 | Talk: Feminist social science for what? Psychology, reproductive justice, and the limits of reason
Alexandra Rutherford PhD CPsych, Professor, Dept. of Psychology, York University
Toronto, E-mail: alexr@yorku.ca

My current project analyses the relationships among feminism, psychology, and policy since World War II in the United States. I am interested in understanding how feminist theories and values have circulated through psychology and with what real-world effects on collective experience, including institutional, state, and federal policy. In this talk, I present one piece of this historical project that, unfortunately, has intense contemporary relevance: the role of feminist psychology in defending the right to abortion. Under the presidency of Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, anti-abortion activists intensified their efforts to chip away at the constitutional right seemingly enshrined in Roe v. Wade by making abortion into a women’s mental health issue. Abortion damaged women, they argued, and should be subject to strict control by the state. Feminist psychologists stepped in to challenge this claim with science. In examining this particular case I draw out the relevance of social science for policy, but also show the limits of this relevance for issues of deep moral import. The capacity of feminist psychology to respond to these issues, then, is made much more complicated than a strictly rationalist, scientific approach allows. 

Break: 14:55-15:10

PART II:

15:10- 17:00 | Round-table conversation

15:10-16:00: Stimulus comments
Facilitator: Ana Teixeira de Melo
Commentators from CES: Adriana Bebiano, Luciane Lucas dos Santos, Neide P. Areia, Patrícia Vieira (online)

16:00-17:00 General discussion

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