Student Division Webinar

Student Division Webinar

Breaking Down Language Barriers in South Africa

About this Webinar

Date: 30 May 2024

Time: 18h30 – 20h00

Platform: Zoom 

Join us for an informative webinar designed to broaden the perspectives of psychology students by delving into key themes such as multiculturalism, social justice, and community psychology interventions within the context of African psychology and language use.

Key themes include appreciating language diversity in South Africa and its impact on psychological practices. Attendees will get to experience discussion surrounding challenges and obstacles posed by language differences in communication, education, and social integration, and how these complexities affect therapy and practice.

The webinar also highlights innovative approaches and best practices to foster multilingualism and inclusivity for a more equitable psychological field. Additionally, participants will gain insights from individuals who have navigated language barriers firsthand, sharing their experiences and perspectives on working within South Africa’s diverse linguistic landscape.

Participate in a panel discussion alongside experienced professionals in the field as they share their knowledge and facilitate meaningful conversations surrounding language use in psychology. This webinar aims to inform, inspire, and drive change toward more inclusive and culturally aware practices in psychology. Join us for this enriching experience!

Meet The Presenters

Prof. Nhlanhla Mkhize: DVC & HEAD OF THE COLLEGE
Prof Nhlanhla Mkhize, PhD, is the former Head of the School of Psychology and former Dean and former Head of the School of Applied Human Sciences at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa). He teaches modules on African Psychology & Ethics, concerning African philosophical underpinnings to ethics, and also touches on the interface between culture, health, and illness. He has been invited to give keynote addresses nationally and internationally on the subject of indigenous knowledge systems, morality/ethics, and the self. He has published journal articles and book chapters on cultural aspects of counseling, career counseling, African psychology, and ethics. He was a member of the International (African) Reference Group that participated in the revision of the International Code of Ethics for Occupational Health Therapists. Of late he has been interested in language and instruction and has been involved in isiZulu terminology development and translation for Psychology and other Social Sciences disciplines.

Prof Puleng Segalo: Chief Luthuli Research Chair, UNISA
Prof Puleng Segalo is the Chief Albert Luthuli Research Chair at the University of South Africa. She holds a multi-award-winning PhD in Psychology and is an active alumnus of the South African Young Academy of Sciences. In 2021/2022, she was the winner of the World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) award for popularising science. Prof Segalo is a National Research Foundation (NRF) rated scholar known for her work at the intersection of Public Health and Psychology. Her expertise lies in Africa-centred psychology, gender, trauma, and decolonial feminism in psychology. Prof Puleng Segalo’s research focuses on historical trauma, visual methodologies, and gendered suffering. She explores various aspects of marginalized voices and cultural narratives. Her specialized research, recognized for its innovation and insight, earned her the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Research in 2023. This high-impact research demonstrates her dedication to advancing knowledge and promoting social justice.

Simphiwe Mkhize: Lecturer at University of the Witwatersrand
Simphiwe Mkhize is recently appointed as a lecturer in South African Sign Language (SASL) in the School of Literature, Language and Media (SLLM) at Wits University. She is co-teaching modules in Deaf Culture and SASL linguistics. She has completed B.A(Hons) and Master of arts (MA) in SASL. Her main area of research is sociolinguistics, especially focusing on how Deaf people in South Africa adjust their styles of signing when interacting with people from different racial and cultural backgrounds. As a researcher, she hopes to improve the status of SASL by investigating its linguistic and sociolinguistic features, as there has been very little research on SASL. Prior to joining Wits, Simphiwe taught SASL in various contexts (executive members of a corporation, government employees, university students, and so on). Apart from teaching language skills, Simphiwe also educated people on the history and culture of Deaf people, as well as the importance of sign language interpreters, their code of conduct, and how to work with them. She has also facilitated so-called ‘sensitization’ workshops in which she taught hearing/able-bodied people how to communicate and interact with Deaf people and people with disabilities in general. Her aim has been to educate hearing people and empower Deaf people in South Africa.

SASL Interpreters: Mpho Teme and Lebogang Chauke

30th Anniversary Congress: Sponsorship Opportunities

30th Anniversary Congress: Sponsorship Opportunities

Partner with the Psychological Society of South Africa (PsySSA) for our momentous 30th Anniversary Congress, which is scheduled to take place from 8 to 11 October 2024. This landmark occasion commemorates three decades of excellence in psychology, making it the perfect platform for knowledge sharing, networking, and professional growth.

Join us in this historic celebration and benefit from the extensive exposure and engagement opportunities available through our tailored sponsorship packages. See our Sponsorship Prospectus below as it details a variety of options designed to maximize your brand’s visibility and align with your sponsorship goals.

CEP Divisional Webinar 3

CEP Divisional Webinar 3

CEP Divisional Webinar 3

The Role of the Researcher in Intersectional Climate Justice Relationships: Intergenerational Stories, Methodologies and Practices of Hope

About this Webinar

Date: 28 May 2024

Time: 16h00 

Platform: Teams

Intersectional climate justice approaches are critical to understanding the complex global ecological crises under capitalism in its current iteration. In these bleak times of genocide, extreme economic inequality and intergenerational injustice, how we reflect on our practices for eco-social transformation within the academy matters. This panel brings together four researchers from different backgrounds and stages in their research journeys to reflect on our roles in intersectional climate justice activism (and) research and to share our stories, methodologies and practices of hope.

Dr. Carlie Trott (moderator) and panelists Dena Arya, Stephanie Lam, and Rupinder Grewal will engage each other and attendees in dialogue around themes of youth climate justice activism/research, positionality, conceptual and methodological journeys and hopes for engaging in transformation with research participants we work with. We know that, as researchers in this space, our values and practices do not always match with the realities of what it means to do participatory and collaborative research. We aim to illuminate some of the tensions we encounter in our work in hopes that this creates a safe space for attendees to reflect on their own practice and leave the session a little more hopeful and in solidarity with one another.

See the link below to join!

Meet The Panelists

Carlie D. Trott, PhD is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Cincinnati where she heads the Collaborative Sustainability Lab and advises students in the Community and Organizational Research for Action (CORA) PhD program. Dr. Trott’s climate justice research agenda aims to bring visibility to, and work against the inequitable impacts of climate change, socially and geographically. As a social psychologist by training and community psychologist in practice, Trott’s work aims to center the voices and actions of those most affected by environmental injustice and the climate crisis and often involves community-engaged, participatory, and action-oriented research methods. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Bloomberg Philanthropies. Her research has been published in the journals Sustainability Science, Action Research, Local Environment, Environmental Education Research, Studies in Higher Education, Journal of Social and Political Psychology, and others.

Dena Arya is a member of the Iranian diaspora who has worked in the UK as a youth and community practitioner for over fifteen years. Dena’s research interests in youth politics stem from the early days of the Global Financial Crisis of 2008. Since this time in her practice with young people, she has witnessed the developing socio-economic pressures and climate injustice they face and how they navigate this in their politics. Her research interests include intersectionality, the political economy of youth, eco-socialism, and climate activism. Her current research focuses on Youth Participatory Action Research with young people from Global Majority communities to develop climate justice education tools. Dena is currently a Research Associate at the University of Pretoria, South Africa, and is also a youth personal development coach and works with the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health UK to support youth to have a voice in health policy-making.

Stephanie Lam, M.A. (She / They) is an Asian American doctoral Candidate of Community Psychology. She is training with the Community and Organizational Research for Action Program, in the department of psychology at the University of Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. Stephanie’s current research focuses on the intersection of racial and climate justice. Specifically, she is focused on recording the experiences and perspectives of BIPOC youths who engage in climate justice actions. Her work process takes in the form of collaboration with ingredients are co-collaboration, fluid negotiation, and creative processes. Stephanie strives to create spaces of care, creativity, and collaboration in whatever project she is engaging with. She is currently a board member serving as secretary of the Community Engagement Collective (CEC), and community-based nonprofit organization serving Cincinnati Communities. She is currently assisting in building a coalition for a BIPOC mental health directory in Cincinnati to help bridge the gap for Cincinnati BIPOC to find mental health provider.

Rupinder Grewal is a Punjabi-Canadian and recent Master of Education graduate from Lakehead University. Her thesis focused on centring the voices of Black, Indigenous, and racialized youth activists in the Climate Justice Movement. Drawing from her experiences, she conducted qualitative research with 15 youth from marginalized communities engaged in climate activism. Her work illuminated their stories, highlighting not only the racism and oppression they faced but also showcasing their resilience and leadership in navigating these challenges and creating opportunities for fellow youth activists. Rupinder is a high school teacher with a passion for social justice, intersectionality, and youth activism. She has taught in schools in Canada and Thailand and has contributed significantly to equity-focused initiatives as a curriculum specialist with Ontario’s educational television network, TVO. Firmly believing in the transformative power of storytelling, Rupinder continues to explore the complexities of life while advocating for meaningful change in education and beyond.

CEP Divisional Webinar 2

CEP Divisional Webinar 2

CEP Divisional Webinar 2

Climate justice for traditional communities with a psychological lens. What do you think?

About this Webinar

Date: 21 May 2024

Time: 15h00-16h00

Platform: Teams

In this webinar we propose a reflection on the social and territorial organization of traditional peoples and communities in Brazil, arguing that environmental justice for these groups is essential for the maintenance of socio-biodiversity on the planet and to mitigate the environmental and climate impacts that affect our historical time. Therefore, we will discuss new lens for discuss environmental issues, taking into account the possible contributions of psychology, in dialogue with anthropological science, to the defence of territorial rights. In this sense, we will take into account some historical experiences of territoriality, highlighting how it plays a fundamental role in understanding the world, in the epistemological practices, sociality, and housing of communities such as Indigenous peoples, Quilombolas, and other traditional groups, which challenge the universality of binomial concepts such as people/environment, nature/culture, rural/urban, etc. We defend the necessary incorporation of an ethical-political dimension in its work. Finally, since we acknowledge the urgency of the demands posed by a development agenda that values human dignity and other forms of life on our planet, encompassing a complex processes that involve global challenges, particularly in the contexts of the periphery of the global South, we believe it is possible to draw parallels between the Brazilian and South African realities.

See the link below to join!

Meet our Presenter

Prof Raquel Diniz: PhD (2015) and Master (2010) in Psychology at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN). Received funding from the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) to develop a doctoral internship at the Research Group in Social, Environmental and Organizational Psychology (PsicoSAO/University of Barcelona) (2013-2014). Researcher at the Person-Environment Study Group (GEPA/UFRN), and coordinator of the Observatory for Latin American Environmental Psychology (obPALA/UFRN). She works in teaching and research at undergraduate and postgraduate levels in the areas of Epistemology and Research Methodology in the Human Sciences, focusing on critical and participatory perspectives. She also works in the area of Environmental Psychology with the themes of environmental issues and sustainable lifestyles, plural territorialities in contexts of traditional peoples and communities, and the history and developments of Environmental Psychology in Latin America. She worked as an assistant professor at the University of International Integration of Afro-Brazilian Lusofonia (Unilab), marking her approach to post/anti-colonial thinking and southern epistemologies. She is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN) and at the Postgraduate Program in Psychology (PPgPsi/UFRN).

 

DRM Divisional Webinar

DRM Divisional Webinar

Talanoa Methodology for Transformative Climate Action

On 9 May 2024, Dr Olivia Yates joined Fatima Peters for the first DRM Webinar of 2024, to discuss Dr Yates’s use of talanoa, a Pacific qualitative method/ology, in collaborative research on climate migration from Tuvalu and Kiribati to New Zealand. Dr Yates contextualised talanoa and explored the nuances of its use by non-Pacific peoples, like herself.

Dr Olivia Yates (she/her) is a New Zealand community psychologist with English, Irish and Scottish Ancestry. Her action-oriented PhD was focused on Pacific climate mobility and related policy solutions. She currently works for World Vision New Zealand in climate change advocacy as a policy and research advisor.

You can access the webinar recording on the DRM You Tube Channel here: