Alternative Knowledges and the Future of Community Psychology: Provocations from an American Indian Healing Tradition

Abstract

In the early years of this globalized century, alternative health knowledges and wellness traditions circulate faster and farther than ever before. To the degree that community psychologists seek collaboration with cultural minority and other marginalized populations in support of their collective wellbeing, such knowledges and traditions are likely to warrant attention, engagement, and support. My purpose in this article is to trace an epistemological quandary that community psychologists are ideally poised to consider at the interface of hegemonic and subjugated knowing with respect to advances in community wellbeing. To this end, I describe an American Indian knowledge tradition, its association with specific indigenous healing practices, its differentiation from therapeutic knowledge within disciplinary psychology, and the broader challenge posed by alternative health knowledges for community psychologists.