Email this article The relational community: Towards an onto-political concept of community
Abstract
The article reviews the concept of community from the perspective of community social psychology, with the aim of proposing the notion of relational community as a theoretical tool for understanding and working with indigenous peoples. A literature review of the main community proposals from community psychology is conducted, and political ontology is employed to incorporate the relationship between human and non-human agents. As an example, the Mapuche territory is analyzed, highlighting concepts such as itrofill mognen (all forms of life) and AzMapu (system of coexistence norms), revealing the communication between people, nature, and spirituality. The article concludes that it is necessary to transcend the anthropocentrism of the agency notion in social sciences, in order to incorporate nature as an active participant in indigenous groups. The paper contributes to community psychology by broadening the concept of community, including non-humans in the social relations of indigenous peoples. The analysis invites a decolonization of academic and political practices to address socio-environmental conflicts.
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