miércoles, 16 de julio de 2008

My last Assignment

For this last assignment i choose an article called "Active Minorities Psychology" of Serge Moscovici.

During the last four decades, two social psychological theories have had tremendous influence on a generation of researchers: the theory of social representations and the theory of active minorities. One scholar, Serge Moscovici, has developed these two theories, but they each lived independently and they were seldom confronted one another. Both theories aim to develop a dynamic perspective in the analysis of social reality and devote themselves to the understanding of social change. They are both interested in conflict which takes place in society and which may allow a reflection on the motivations for action, decision-making and change. Specifically, he pose the question concerning the epistemological relationship between these two theories. In order to answer this question, he first present the most important aspects of each theory and then reflect on their epistemological relationships.This article also presents a theoretical explanation of the dialectic between active minorities and majorities within a community based on our experience of psychosocial community practice. When assessing needs it is usual to detect contradictions between perceptions of problems by community members and the feelings they express about them. This gap establishes the differences between community needs as estimated by experts and those felt by the people. It also has a delaying and paralyzing effect for the participants. It is contended that the processes of naturalization and habituation are responsible for this phenomenon, their ideological nature leading to accept what is problematic as the way things are. Consciousness-raising and problematization are a way to overcome these contradictions, and through them, community organizations may become active minorities. However, contrary to what the study of social influence argues, this does not mean that the active minority always will move the majority, or vice versa; but there is a dialectic between them, in which power, understood as a relationship, plays a basic role. The notions of psychologization, denial, and conversion are analyzed to explain the tension produced and how it affects the perception of needs and the community's reaction to them.

A topic releated to my studies

A topic that i found very interesting this semester it´s really specific. It´s about a paper that y read of Michel Foucault called "The Psychiatry Power" wrote on 1973. Before i talk about this paper i´ll say something about this amasing writer:

Michel Foucault (15 octuber 1926–25 june 1984) was a french philosopher, historian, critic and sociologist. He held a chair at the Collège de France, giving it the title "History of Systems of Thought," and taught at the University of California, Berkeley.
Michel Foucault is best known for his critical studies of social institutions, most notably psychiatry, medicine, the human sciences, and the prison system, as well as for his work on the history of human sexuality. Foucault's work on power, and the relationships among power, knowledge, and discourse, has been widely discussed and applied. In the 1960s Foucault was often associated with the structuralist movement. Foucault later distanced himself from structuralism. Sometimes described as postmodernist, Foucault always rejected the post-structuralist and postmodernist labels.

I like this paper because makes a great critic of psychiatry hopitals and how society created them just to marginalize people that was considered different and could cause a breach of the peace and the status quo. He said that this instituions use repression and violence to keep the order inside (like when they use electroshocks to calm them down).
I´m really agree with Foucault in that point, ´cause this institutions have been working as a real punichment to people that is not considered "normal". I think that if people are sick or need a treatment of a disease, we need to find other ways to help them, we dont have the right of treat them like animal. This society sentence people when they are different, when they think different, ´cause, when people has power, everything different is dangerous. In my opinion, i have to said, that to my, difference is hope.

jueves, 26 de junio de 2008

A couple of good websites of psychology

The first websites that I chose was the encyclopedia of psychology cause it´s a grate place to find almost everything related with this huge and complex study area. You can find publication and documents, organizations and institutions of psychology, paradigms and theories, anyway, it´s a really good place to start to discover and learn from the first thing you need to know of this fantastic and infinitive universe, to the most specific details of the areas that you find more interesting.

Here is the link: http://www.psychology.org/

The second website that I chose was a really specific one, in fact, it´s an articule called “Relations Between Community-Social Psychology, Critical-Social Psychology, and Social Psychology of Liberation: A Latin American Answer”. This paper argued that this three areas (community-social psychology, critical-social psychology, and social psychology of liberation) response to the problems and needs suffered by societies in Latin America. All the investigation of these three areas is destinated to try to understand, from psychology, the problems that we, as latinamericans, share.
I chose this articule couse it´s one of the areas of psychology that I found more interesting, cause teach us to be critical (if we don’t learn to question our society we cant´t changed it), to understand that the collective work take us to find collective golds and also fight for a fear society, and finally, social psychology of liberation, with the other two areas, remind us that we have to recover our memory, that we can´t forget that we are latinameticans, and we have a past, a history, a whole culture that made us what we are today, and we most be proud of that.

Here is the link: http://www.scielo.cl/scielo.php?pid=S0718-22282004000200002&script=sci_arttext

My last weekend

Considering that my last weekend was the last weekend before we returned to classes after more than a month of the campus mobilization, i thought that it was the perfect oportunity to celebrated and and drink a toast with my friend becouse then it would be just impossible with all the book that we would had to read.
So, i started my celebration on Friday. That afternoon, i went to our faculty because we had an important meeting, but just when that came to and end, we started to prepared ourselfs for the big celebration.
We bought a lot of wine and made a huge "navegado" (hot wine and oranges on a big pot) to start the big party and then it was all laughing and dancing all night long. I have to say that it was a pretty long night (my boyfriend and I arrived home at 5 am), but it was really really fun.

On Saturday, my boyfriend and i woke up very late (at 3 pm jaja) and we cook some luch (at fist it´s always a disaster, cause we know nothing about cooking, but at the end our inventions always tasted really good J ). Then we study for a couple of hours (I swear, we study, but we read just a few pages jaja).
Finally, we conclude our day with a couple of beers in a pub on Bellavista.

On Sunday, I woke up very early and I just read all day long (pretty boring I know, but we can´t live in a party forever, don’t we?...mmm maybe we can jaja).

My favorite song

With my own too hands Ben Harper

I chose this song because, somehow, it reflect what I try to do, with my own two hands, every day in my life, what I want to do to make this world a better place. This song it´s full of hope, but it´s not an empty and confortable hope, no, it said that we have to work to change the world, that we have to used our own two hands, that we can clean up the earth, that we can make this place a kinder place, but if we don’t do something about it, that if we don’t work for it, this wold will not ever be different.
But to do that we have to work together, that´s what the song means when it said “but you have to used, used your own to hand”, because, it´s a huge huge battle, a battle that we will never win if we try to do it alone.
If you want to see the video, check it out in you tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8YEaSH_Sp0 (I prefer the acoustic version, so this is the link of that one, but in youtube it´s he original tooJ (and there ever a better version, it sings Ben Harper with Eddie Vedder (vocalize of Pearl Jam), but I haven´t find it yet. If someone have it, it would be get that you send it to me jajaja)).

I can change the world
With my own two hands
Make a better place
With my own two hands
Make a kinder place
With my own two hands
With my own
With my own two hands
I can make peace on earth
With my own two hands
I can clean up the earth
With my own two hands
I can reach out to you
With my own two hands
With my own
With my own two hands

Im gonna make it a brighter place
Im gonna make it a safer place
Im gonna help the human race
With my own
With my own two hands

I can hold you
With my own two hands
I can comfort you
With my own two hands
But you got to use
Use your own two hands
Use your own
Use your own two hands

With our own
With our own two hands
With my own
With my own two hands

jueves, 17 de abril de 2008

Ok, let´s start

OK, now I have a blog. I have to confess that this is a little weird for my ´cause usually I’m a big mess with computers, but in this particular occasion it was pretty easy, even for me.

So, let´s start for the beginning. Who the hell I am?

Well, my name is Francisca and I’m from Punta Arenas, yes, Punta Arenas, that little city at the end of the world surrounded by penguins and igloos (jaja, the last thing was a joke, but since I’m here in Santiago I have met a lot of people that think that it´s true). I lived 18 years in that city and I came to live to Santiago last year when I came to study psychology. You might think that you have to be crazy to study psychology, and I’m sure your right jaja, but I can´t deny that I love my career, that I enjoy almost everything about it, and that I don’t regret, for even a second, this choice I made.

Maybe if it wasn´t for my English class I would never made myself a blog, ´cause I’m kind of old fashion and I prefer a piece of paper and a pen. Even so, now that I’m writing I think that this could be a good chance to prove something different, and who knows, maybe I even keep it jaja.