Convent girls, feminism, and community psychology

This "trinity" of articles in one incorporates reflections by three feminis t community psychologists from the Irish Catholic diaspora. Using a narrati ve approach, we explore the roots of our common commitment to social justic e, and the emergence of our feminism from diverse life experiences across f our countries, within a shared spiritual tradition. We argue that building inclusive and just communities is impossible without addressing the complex ities of our own communities, cultural identities, and spiritual heritages, the latter often underacknowledged within feminism and community psycholog y. Catholic Ireland in the 19th century was a colonized(1) country that bec ame a colonial power by the export of its people and their religion out of oppression, famine, and Poverty to the "new worlds" of Australia, Canada, N ew Zealand, and the USA. Our mixed experiences of internalized dominance as White, English-speaking members of the "one true Church" and of internaliz ed oppression as Irish Catholic minority women in predominantly Protestant Anglo-Saxon patriarchal societies resonate in our accounts of the pressures to "do good and be good. " Our stories illustrate commonalities and contra dictions between feminism, community psychology, and shifting meanings of s pirituality. We offer strategies for harnessing energies and fostering comm itment for social change, and examine how understandings of feminism, spiri tuality, culture, and community might be acknowledged and incorporated into community psychology theory and practice. (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.