A Pedagogy for the White Nonpoor in the United States: Returning Stolen and Excess Wealth,Land,and Resources to the Common Good

Abstract

Liberation psychology prioritizes the needs and experiences of those who suffer oppression and have been locked out of the commons. Upstream in the United States, those with stolen and excess wealth, land, and resources remain within “gated” communities, protected by ideologies, false narratives, laws, and policing practices. Without leaving a roadmap, liberation psychologist Martín-Baró urged psychologists to reorient their work with the economically privileged to include disrupting compulsive consumption. Excess wealth is largely accumulated through histories of stolen land, extraction of resources, abuse of labor, hoarding, and intergenerational inheritance. This accumulation has benefited White people at the expense of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) individuals and communities. The tasks of conscientization, de-ideologization, and prophetic imagination that liberation psychology engages with those suffering oppression need also to be deployed with willing elites to assist in returning assets, land, and power to the commons. This article addresses the psychosocial tasks that are part of this return of excess and stolen wealth and privilege, a return that opens possibilities for mutual accompaniment and solidarity for the sake of justice and peace. This work seeks to contribute to the pedagogy of the nonpoor and the potential role of the helping professions in this pedagogy.