Our Paradigms, Ourselves

Abstract

The paper reflects on the life experiences that influenced both my involvement in folk music and my career as a community psychologist. In particular, the role of chance, supportive adults and social settings, travel, and encounters with diversity served to turn the ongoing experience of personal and professional marginality into a resource for me over time. The paper's title reflects my understanding of how my ecological perspective, developed over the years in community psychology, is rooted in critical life events and happenstance occurrences. This reflection has helped clarify the visceral connection between the ecological contexts of my personal/professional experiences and Jim Kelly's initial presentation of the ecological metaphor for the field.

Key Words:

• Ecology
• social support
• autobiography
• narrative