The Community Research and Action in the West Conference (CRA-W) is an annual event that provides an opportunity to share ideas, practices, and learning from recent completed or ongoing community-based work. The UW Center for Human Rights co-sponsored this year’s conference, in partnership with the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at UW Bothell, and the Society for Community Research and Action (APA Division 27).
Exploring Interdisciplinary Approaches
On October 16, The Community Research and Action in the West Conference (formerly the Northwest ECO Conference) was held at the University of Washington Bothell campus. Students, faculty, staff, community members and organizations, activists and researchers attended from all over the U.S. and abroad. Throughout the day, participants engaged in workshops and activities centered on community engagement, privilege, education, social justice, oppression and resistance, and student activism.
Keynote speaker Brad Olson was one of the six dissidents who campaigned against the American Psychological Association (APA) and their complicity in US government-sanctioned interrogations and alleged torture. The Hoffman report, released this year, concluded that key APA staff members and the Department of Defense colluded to loosen the APA code of ethics in the service of the “global war on terror,” ultimately allowing psychologists to use their skills to harm others. Olson described the ways in which an understanding of ethics, interdisciplinary, and ecological thinking can play more protective roles and avoid outcomes such as those detailed in the Hoffman report.