This volume’s precursor, Community Psychology: Analysis, Context, and Action, was published in 2007 and has been updated to reflect the  many dramatic events and changes since then. These include the impact of COVID-19, countless disasters related to climate change, rapid technological advances – all events and changes that have impacted the dynamics and wellbeing of communities to varying degrees. Of course, we have also witnessed significant changes in the field of community psychology itself – including changes in its priorities, such as the field’s increasing focus on decolonisation, climate justice, and digital spaces as spaces of community mobilisation. The current volume, Community Psychology: Global Crises, Local Realities, and Action, reflects these changes.

This volume was developed with two key objectives in mind. First, with the intention of providing readers with a comprehensive, diverse, and wide-ranging collection of insights, debates, and research on key theoretical, analytical, teaching, learning, and action-oriented approaches in community psychology. Second, the volume was developed with the objective of promoting collaboration among community psychology students, researchers, activists, and others across geographical and national boundaries, given the reality and possibilities of increasing global interconnectedness.

Consisting of 17 chapters, the volume is divided into four sections: (1) an introduction, (2) histories of community psychology, (3) salient contemporary issues, such as the dynamics of digital communities, the climate emergency, gendered poverty, houselessness, intergenerational relations, and the impact of race and class on child health, and (4) teaching, learning, research, and other interventions in communities.

Section 1: Introduction
Chapter 1: An introduction to the volume
Chapter 2: Building bridges: the value of online international  collaboration in fostering cross-boundary cooperation  amongst scholars in community psychology 

Section 2: Histories of community psychology
Chapter 3: Global histories of community psychology: contextual emergence, epistemic development and future possibilities
Chapter 4: A critical historical perspective on community  psychology in South Africa

Section 3: Salient contemporary issues
Chapter 5: Community psychology: A transformative lens 
on mental health and social change
Chapter 6: Towards re-humanisation and overcoming gendered poverty 
Chapter 7: Race, class, inequality and childhood health in South Africa
Chapter 8: Contextual issues: Power, violence, and marginalization 
Chapter 9: People experiencing houselessness
Chapter 10: South African Older Persons at the Precarity-Capability Nexus: The role of community psychology 
Chapter 11: Intergenerational experiences of respect and relational dynamics: Implications for community psychology and intergenerational programming 
Chapter 12 : Justice-oriented Community Psychology and the Climate Emergency
Chapter 13: Questioning and queering digital communities
Chapter 14: Creating a youth sense of belonging, power, and activism through critical community psychology

Section 4: Teaching, learning, research
Chapter 15: Teaching community psychology in South Africa
Chapter 16: Doing difference differently in communities: Starting with the students we teach
Chapter 17: Activating action in a digital age: Aims, methods and imperatives of research in community psychology

• Students of psychology
• Researchers
• Academics
• Community workers
• Policy developers