Attachment research and anti-racism: learning from Black and Brown scholars

ABSTRACT

Preliminary evidence suggests that people and scholars of African and/or Latin American and Caribbean origin are often under-represented in mainstream attachment scholarship. In this commentary, we highlight the difficulty of conducting attachment theory research outside of the United States, particularly in Latin American countries. We reflect on the contributions by the authors of this special issue . We also identify (a) ways in which to center the experiences of Black and Brown people and scholars to push the field toward antiracism, and (b) the challenges of attachment theory and research in becoming anti-racist by considering the structural nature of racism.

KEYWORDS:

• Attachment
• racism
• anti-racism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. We use the term Black and Brown broadly to represent people of color who are minoritized. Although we focus mostly on people of African and/or Latin American and Caribbean origin, we also include in this label Indigenous, Asian and Pacific Islanders, and multiracial people.

2. For full details about the search strategy and results for each search, see https://osf.io/3tjfm/?view_only=bce3986efb5745738d8352a03cd8173c

Additional information

Funding

This work did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. We declare no conflict of interest.