Belonging and Socio-Political Activation: In Conversation with Current Activists

With Mehr-Afarin Kohan, MD, FRCPC Social action has been observed to be a remedy against invisibility and despair. It helps individuals to join in, take on roles, become members of something larger than them, which is an antidote to losing hope and a way of bridging different self-states. (Shapiro & Carr, 2017) In coining their concept of “Relational Citizenship”, Hassinger & Pivnick (2022) discuss how participation and collaboration in groups built on "tolerating differences with empathy, mutuality and accountability” (pg. 124), where members are beneficiaries as well as contributors to a common cause, provide an opportunity for members to regain hope and vitality by experiencing themselves as part of something larger. It is in the act of joining in, of becoming a citizen of a group that the individual finds an opportunity to reclaim/reinvent/rediscover self-states while maintaining their integrity. (Shapiro & Carr, 2017)