Social justice revisited: Psychological re-colonization and the challenge of anti-oppression advocacy

In this article, we describe the principles of anti-oppression advocacy (AOA), an intervention model that is informed by ideals of social justice and by an emphasis on promoting psychological weilness in immigrant communities. We argue that the AOA model can create positive transformation through alternatives to traditional modes ofpsychological intervention, through social capital advocacy, and through activist-oriented partnerships between universities and communities. We also outline some of the challenges involved in advancing the AOA model, namely existing methods of service-delivery that ignore the complex workings of racism and long-standing methods of training that fail to equip practitioners with tools to counter oppression in the communities they serve.