Mobilising decolonial approaches for community-engaged research for racial justice

This article will describe some projects at Victoria University that have sought to enact community-engaged scholarship concerned specifically with matters of race, racism and racialised exclusion. I will discuss some of this research within the changing broader landscape of critical community psychology contexts. The projects discussed sit within a program of work broadly focused on the challenges to living that people face in different contexts because of histories of colonialism, racism, displacement and exclusion. Community-based projects are described to show efforts to contribute to empowerment-oriented, community-engaged work. Important features of this work have included the creation of spaces within the university that are committed to inter-disciplinarity, creativity, support and survival within a neoliberalised institution. The connections made with community agencies and groups are equally important: they help to reduce the distance between university and community. Through these relationships, we participate in producing new ways to support individuals, groups and communities in actions aimed at individual and group self-determination and wellbeing.