Cultural Ecopsychology:  Issues of Displacement and the Urban African Community

Introduction
 
Overview of the research problem
This study explores the relationship between physical and ideological displacement and the cultural health of the urban African American population. The postulation is that the Black urban community in the United States has been deeply affected by two historic displacements. The first occurred with the practice of slavery which forced peoples originally from Central and Western Africa to the eastern coast of what is now the United States. The second ensued during the Great Migration periods when massive amounts of Blacks migrated from the rural South to industrial cities of the northern and western United States. Both uproots resulted in a disconnection from the original traditions of African Americans, which were relatively earth-based and circular, forcing them into a western culture which was more material-based and linear. The results of this cultural displacement are manifold throughout the urban Black community and will be fully explored.
However, the purpose of this study is not simply to demonstrate how placing an earth-based tradition into a material culture will result in its demise. It goes further, contending that in order to address our present ecological crisis, all peoples embedded in western culture must reintegrate into earth-based traditions in order to ensure the survival of the living systems of the Earth, including humans. The author asserts that the urban Black community is in an excellent position to model this transformation because its people are: descendants of earth-based traditions; generally dissatisfied with their status within the United States; and racially and economically segregated from the rest of U.S. society, giving it immeasurable power to invoke change.
 
Indication of why the problem is worth exploring
It is of utmost importance that this topic be explored for two primary reasons. First, the issues facing the urban Black community have escalated to such an extent that direct action must be taken immediately. At first glance, high rates of poverty coupled with a lack of viable economic opportunity have forced Blacks into either menial labor, dependency on social welfare programs, or relocation to areas with better economic opportunities. Those that remain within urban Black inner-cities experience, either firsthand or through the surrounding population, offenses such as: violence, drug abuse, loss of family cohesion, depression, poor health, environmental toxicity, insufficient access to acceptable food choices, lack of local ownership of housing and businesses, impoverished and culturally irrelevant educational institutions, diminished political power, and loss of critical knowledge detailing their cultural heritage. On the one hand, these conditions can be directly linked to high rates of poverty. On a larger scale, they can also be viewed as a result of one culture’s displacement into a foreign, western culture that demands integration. African Americans are submerged within a dominant culture that does not support the underlying assumptions of their original African traditions and world views. Moreover, consciously and unconsciously, the western culture of the United States supports racial oppression.
Second, integration into the mainstream culture of the United States is not a viable option for the Black community because it would force its people to experience an even greater disconnection from their cultural foundations. In addition, the environmental movement has demonstrated that the consumption habits and psychological underpinnings of mainstream, western culture are detrimental to the well-being of the Earth and all of its inhabitants. For example, the New Road Map Foundation, an organization which addresses the high levels of consumption in the U.S., states that the typical U.S. citizen ". . . causes 100 times more damage to the global environment than a person in a poor country (1999, p. 6)." If the Black community integrated into this mainstream society, modeling its level of consumption, it would simply escalate the ecological crisis. Instead this community needs to develop a new cultural model which is inclusive of its past earth-based traditions, bringing them into modern relevancy and in congruence with its present locale, in a manner that is ecologically sustainable.
 
What contribution does the study make to theory and/or practice?
This study is unique for it combines a variety of fields in an attempt to provide one possible solution to a question that bewilders modern civilization: How does western society eradicate the environmental degradation and cultural oppression produced by its systemic practices? The author believes that one answer lies in the organization of human cultures. In order for a culture to be sustainable, it must be modeled according to a natural pattern or what Fritjof Capra terms a living system. One’s culture must contain specific criteria of a living system and, in addition, must be reflective of its local landscape, commonly known as a bioregion.
Recently environmentalists, especially those in the field of ecopsychology, have argued that western culture is not natural, because it separates itself, both in ideology and in practice, from the rest of the living world. The exact origin of western culture is questionable. Some theorists claim this culture began with agricultural based societies, while others believe it arose with the industrial, machine-oriented age of mass production. For the context of this study, western culture is defined as the dominant and expansive consumer class of the economically richest and most politically powerful nations which are based upon a hierarchical order, such as the United States and the European nations. This will be covered in more depth in following sections. In references throughout this study, western culture will refer to the mainstream, consumer society of the United States.
This study applies some concepts from the field of ecopsychology to the role of culture, looking specifically at the urban African American culture. The author looks at the history of this population, identifying those factors which caused a disconnection from its foundational culture and the identity of the living world. The contention is that by looking at how these disconnections arose, and then looking at earth-based practices which are from urban Black’s original cultures, this population can find possible solutions to its current problems. Moreover, this population could provide one model of culturally and ecologically responsive behavior for all peoples of western cultures. For ultimately, in order to solve pending environmental and cultural problems, western culture will need to rethink and reform its ideologies and practices. Since there will be no one way to do this for all of western culture, the key lies in groups of people living in a specific place reinterpreting and reestablishing their connection to the living world, including each other.
This study has five sections: a literature review and four research sections. The literature review provides an overview of the study placing it in greater context and connects it to existing theory. The other chapters explore and summarize the author’s research. The first research section outlines a systems critiques of western culture, exploring how it currently fosters environmental degradation and racism. It goes on to ask what type of system is living and non-oppressive and how culture plays a part to mirror/interpret this living system. The second research section documents how the urban African American population has been oppressed by western culture. The third research section looks at the foundations of African American culture, researching examples of earth-based traditions from Central and Western Africa, the areas the enslaved Africans originally inhabited. Here, the author provides examples of this culture operating within a living system. Finally, the author ties the study together, speculating ways these past traditions apply to the present. It goes further proposing ways the urban Black community can reintegrate into the natural world, minimizing its oppression as a group and maximizing its environmental and cultural sustainability.
While the author has chosen to look at one vision for this community to respond to its present challenges, it is important to highlight that there is no one way to address them. There can never be one solution. Anytime a culture becomes fixated in one static belief or practice, it immediately becomes unnatural, for the living world is diverse and dynamic, constantly open to change, and perpetually affected by infinite factors.