Abstract

PAMPLONA, Pablo  and  MENDES, Carlos Eduardo. The Memory of the Christian Base Communities in Light of the Liberation Psychology. Estud. pesqui. psicol. [online]. 2020, vol.20, n.2, pp. 665-681. ISSN 1808-4281.  http://dx.doi.org/10.12957/epp.2020.52592.

The memory of popular struggles goes hand in hand with society's political awareness and, in this sense, memory researches can offer important contributions to new emerging struggles. In this article, we discuss the relevance of the reconstruction of the political memory of the Christian Base Communities (CEBs) in the brazilian context from a theoretical development of practical suggestions made by Ignacio Martín-Baró. We highlight the importance of a social movement that emerged from the CEBs for the process of brazilian redemocratization in the 1980s. With contributions from Liberation Psychology, we argue that the reconstruction of CEBs' memory can contribute: (1) to the construction of social movements of resistance against recent attacks on social and human rights, offering important lessons on their forms of struggle; (2) to dispel myths about the experience of the lower classes in brazilian dictatorship (1964-1985), showing that the resistance against the military regime was not exclusive to the traditional left, but also counted on the revolt of peripheral populations; and 3) to reaffirm the popular virtues, in particular the inventive capacity of the people in organizing and mobilizing for new forms of social relations. In line with Martín-Baró, we claim a place for psychology with the popular majorities.

Keywords : christian base communities; liberation psychology; political memory; political awareness; history of psychology.

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