TRIF Fellowship Jacqueline Priego

My research evinces my commitment to interdisciplinarity, while maintaining a core psychosocial focus that clearly matches the area of Inclusive Communities. My portfolio of projects includes: 1) the role of Brazilian NGOs’ cultural interventions in facilitating resistance to exclusion in favelas of Rio de Janeiro (Jovchelovitch & Priego-Hernandez, 2013, 2015a); 2) Mexican indigenous youths’ experiences of sexual health vis-à-vis local sex and relationship education policies (Priego-Hernandez, 2015); 3) the impact of community mobilisation interventions on HIV prevention among low- and middle-income countries (Cornish, Priego-Hernandez, Campbell, Mburu, & McLean, 2014). I have generated ten publications, most of them focusing on the inclusion of marginalised communities, including the UNESCO-published book ‘Underground Sociabilities: Identity, Culture and Resistance in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro’ (Jovchelovitch & Priego-Hernandez, 2013). Using social representations theory, my research examines how resource-challenged groups cope with exclusion of their knowledge and practices, while the views of ‘experts’ and those with more power are favoured (Jovchelovitch & Priego-Hernandez, 2015b; Priego-Hernandez, 2015). In times in which the quality of truth is questioned and ‘alternative facts’ are debated, mapping out clashing voices, conflict and potential avenues for solving it, is a timely contribution to the study communities that foster inclusion and participation.