Center for Culture, Psychology and Sustainable Development:
Paradigm for a New Earth

The UN Secretary General’s slogan for a post pandemic world is Build Back Better. Usually development initiatives leave out the essential items of culture and psychology, and lead to unsustainable societies with increasing social inequality and injustice on many fronts. The SDGs provide a road map for building back better. 

Sustainable Worldview: For a society to be sustainable it needs to be based on a sustainable worldview. From research in the social sciences including cross-cultural psychology, we know that social relations and social organizations based on the values of respect for diverse ways of being; human rights and race, class and gender equity; interdependence and community; cooperation and sharing; connection with and living in harmony with nature; all together promote healthy social and natural environments and peaceful, inclusive and dynamic societies.

Each culture could evolve its own version of modernity by choosing the cultural values and traditions it wants to integrate with current modern developments to forge a new society.

In order to build back better for sustainable societies we need the following model of change based on the three interlocking pillars of culture, psychology and sustainable development.

Address All Levels of Social system for Sustainable change

Develop initiatives that tackle all levels of a social system from the macro environmental to the micro environmental to the individual level.

Example of levels of a social system – Bronfenbrenner’s diagram

EG: For a School System the levels could be –

• At the Macro level – municipal environment’s social determinants of inequity, SES/economic segregation, Health disparities etc.;
• At the Micro level – the public school system and culture, administrative policies, systems & disciplinary procedures, curricula, faculty hiring, supportive services etc;
• At the Individual level – student mental and physical health, faculty & staff relationships with students, etc.

Simultaneous Empowerment

All relevant constituent groups within a social system need simultaneously to be engaged or empowered socially and psychologically so that they buy in to the change. They will need to be empowered differently according to their social context. According to the dictionary definition, equity is freedom from bias or favoritism. Being ‘equal’ versus ‘fair’ is not necessarily the same thing. In unequal systems, people need differing treatment to make their opportunities the same as another’s. But in addition, those traditionally on top, in order to accept the empowerment of those they have oppressed, need psychological guidance on how to dismantle internalized oppressive, biased systems of power-over others in favour of empowerment of themselves and others in an equitable and just system.

Generally to restore the balance and achieve equity between groups, social programs have been aimed at the groups that have been oppressed and unfairly treated within a society which is of course a priority. But if at the same time, those in dominant social positions are not engaged in the process of change, and only those who are marginalized and oppressed are empowered, it can lead, not to a real but a perceived inequity – a sense of unfairness or grievance and perceptions of threat, that often results in a violent backlash against the vulnerable oppressed groups by the dominant social group.

So it is important for social and psychological empowerment strategies relevant to each group to go hand in hand, to be implemented together, otherwise the social dynamic gets pulled out of balance (Eg rise of white supremacy and nationalism, male rape culture etc).

EGs. Programs to generate awareness of inequity by teaching history of local contexts;

Male youth empowerment programs alongside Girls empowerment programs; Alongside Black youth empowerment programs have White youth empowerment programs, conduct dialogue sessions and psychological training for shifting from power-over others to empowerment model.

Draw from Diversity

Draw on ways of life, attitudes towards nature, strategies, solutions, ideas, social systems from cultures around the world, not just western ‘advanced’ cultures. It is time to move beyond a western-centric dominant view that modern western cultures are the most enlightened and advanced societies and have all the answers. Many answers and ways forward lie with the traditional knowledge of indigenous peoples, and the cultural traditions and knowledge and local NGO initiatives in non-western developing countries.

EGs – Use of the African value of ‘ubuntu’ and of Native American restorative justice practices, community conferencing and community relationship building or repairing, that come from non-western cultures approaches’ to social relationships; Cultural initiation rituals for transition from adolescence into adulthood and for entry into adult community; Holistic health model for community clinics for youth mental and physical health from indigenous and non-western health traditions; Local organic gardens and urban farming.

Address the Psychological Level

Include and address the psychological level when changing a social system. It is too often left out of social policy development and implementation. Even though good equitable legislation and policies are enacted, this does not necessarily lead to lasting change because the internalized systems of racial and other inequities, and inflicted trauma remain and get passed down over the generations.

In addition there are inherent psychological processes that can become barriers to understanding and interacting with others (such as stereotyping, implicit bias, ethnocentrism and implicit culture). In times of social stress the fault lines of our cognitive and emotional processing can get manipulated and triggered by political/economic agendas, and lead to intergroup tensions and conflict. It is important for people to be educated about the processes inside them that can be manipulated by external agencies and for trauma to be healed so that social inequities are not perpetuated despite legislation to the contrary.

EGs. – Education in the psychological processes involved in perception of the ‘other’, and the barriers to communication between groups; Restorative mindfulness practices, Training and interventions in urban trauma informed care, Theatre approaches to conducting difficult dialogues between people and groups; Tapping into youthful idealism for community service.

In Sum: If all 4 principles of change can be addressed and enacted at the same time in the target community this can bring about a more sustainable and equitable system. This model of change can be applied in culturally sensitive and relevant ways to communities nationally and internationally.