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Notes on decolonizing psychology: from one Special Issue to another
South African Journal of Psychology, 2017
In this article, we describe a special thematic section on the topic of “Decolonizing Psychological Science” that we have edited for the Journal of Social and Political Psychology. Three approaches to decolonization were evident in contributions to the ongoing project. In the indigenous resistance approach, researchers draw upon local knowledge to modify “standard” practice and produce psychologies that are more responsive to local realities. In the accompaniment approach, “global expert” researchers from hegemonic centers travel to marginalized communities to work alongside local inhabitants in struggles for social justice. In the denaturalization approach, researchers draw upon local knowledge and experience of marginalized communities as an epistemic resource to resist the coloniality of knowledge and being in hegemonic psychology. The task of decolonization requires more than the production of local psychologies attuned to the conditions of particular communities. In addition, i...
South African Journal of Psychology, 2017
Maldonado-Torres' (2017, this issue) article, titled Frantz Fanon and the decolonial turn in psychology: From modern/colonial methods to the decolonial attitude, (re)invigorates questions about psychology's role as a decolonial practice. The article, in its reading of Fanon, invites us to take up a decolonial attitude through a mode of questioning. It is such a mode of interrogation, a search for knowledge, that propels us towards solutions for the problems of coloniality and its effects on how knowledge is produced and its implications for being. It offers, in part, some of the key considerations-at least for psychology as a discipline and practice-that invite critical reflection on the extent to which we express our humanity in our work. The response to this challenge might be framed as a question that surfaces in the work of critical community psychology, particularly in our field engagements. How do we contribute to decolonising our communities when our social and institutional arrangements mirror relationships asymmetrically structured in configurations of race, gender, and class that are naturalised through our everyday lived relations? I draw from Community Storylines (hereafter Storylines), a community participatory research and intervention project of the Institute for Social and Health Sciences at the University of South Africa. The project is centred on the community of Thembelihle, a peri-urban
Decolonizing Psychological Science: Introduction to the Special Thematic Session
Despite unprecedented access to information and diffusion of knowledge across the globe, the bulk of work in mainstream psychological science still reflects and promotes the interests of a privileged minority of people in affluent centers of the modern global order. Compared to other social science disciplines, there are few critical voices who reflect on the Euro-American colonial character of psychological science, particularly its relationship to ongoing processes of domination that facilitate growth for a privileged minority but undermine sustainability for the global majority. Moved by mounting concerns about ongoing forms of multiple oppression (including racialized violence, economic injustice, unsustainable over-development, and ecological damage), we proposed a special thematic section and issued a call for papers devoted to the topic of "decolonizing psychological science". In this introduction to the special section, we first discuss two perspectives—liberation psychology and cultural psychology—that have informed our approach to the topic. We then discuss manifestations of coloniality in psychological science and describe three approaches to decolonization—indigenization, accompaniment, and denaturalization—that emerge from contributions to the special section. We conclude with an invitation to readers to submit their own original contributions to an ongoing effort to create an online collection of digitally linked articles on the topic of decolonizing psychological science.
Decolonizing Psychological Science: Introduction to the Special Thematic Section
Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 2015
Despite unprecedented access to information and diffusion of knowledge across the globe, the bulk of work in mainstream psychological science still reflects and promotes the interests of a privileged minority of people in affluent centers of the modern global order. Compared to other social science disciplines, there are few critical voices who reflect on the Euro-American colonial character of psychological science, particularly its relationship to ongoing processes of domination that facilitate growth for a privileged minority but undermine sustainability for the global majority. Moved by mounting concerns about ongoing forms of multiple oppression (including racialized violence, economic injustice, unsustainable over-development, and ecological damage), we proposed a special thematic section and issued a call for papers devoted to the topic of "decolonizing psychological science". In this introduction to the special section, we first discuss two perspectives—liberation ...
Editorial: Colonization and decolonization of the mind
Special issue of Cultura & Psyché: Psychological Anthropology and Decolonization of the mind, 2023
This editorial describes the context in which European sciences assisted the political and economic goals of European colonialism to either render non-European ideas and theories invisible or to devalue their scientific quality and thus cite them as evidence of the superiority of the Western mind. Psychologists and anthropologists played a significant role in these measures. Outlined against this background is the overdue necessity of decolonising of psychology and other social sciences. Examples of what facets of such a decolonisation might look like are given in the articles gathered in this Special Section of 'cultura & psyché.'
Special issue of Cultura & Psyché: Psychological Anthropology and Decolonisation of the Mind
2023
Colonization usually refers to a process of appropriating and occupying land; colonialism primarily means the establishment and maintenance of a very specific relationship of domination. The most far-reaching colonizing and colonialist enterprise, and the one with the most far-reaching consequences in terms of its geopolitical impact to this day, is the European conquest and occupation of large parts of the non-European world and the suppression of its populations-an enterprise that began in the late fifteenth century and supposedly ended with the dissolution of colonial empires and the release of most colonized societies into their political independence in the second half of the twentieth century. Although the political and territorial entities that were called colonial empires certainly no longer exist, the colonialist, i.e., asymmetrical, relations between the former colonial powers and their former colonies have survived the centuries. The reason for this is that Western colonialism not only pursued economic and political interests but was also guided by a spiritual attitude, a colonial spirit, that had its cognitive and racist foundation in the conviction of the superiority of white European people-especially white European men-and their achievements. The fact that this spirit is still perceptible today is reflected in culturally established disqualifying, xenophobic and racist discourses, statements, stereotypes and prejudices that continue to influence many of our intercultural encounters and continue to be directed for the most part against people from regions formerly dominated by European colonialism and who are not considered "white." When talking about the colonial spirit, however, one should be attentive to
Decolonising Psychology: Reflections on Continuing Myopia
Psychology and Developing Societies, 2023
‘To be able to step over our shadows, we need the light of many others’. This thematic issue examines how psychology has been influenced by colonisation processes and how these influences find reflection in people’s minds. Various contributors in this thematic issue address decolonising psychology with the larger objective of improving relations between people and also between people and the environment. They specifically examine the process and consequences of decolonising psychology in and for ‘developing’ societies. The process of decolonising psychology is expected to enhance our understanding of the influence of colonisation on minds and human behaviour; it aims at repairing the ill effects of the past and present unequal power relationships that resulted from colonisation. Such knowledge needs to be followed by actions to liberate and make minds free. There is a growing awareness of the influence of colonial history on epistemology, research, methods, assessment and practices of psychology. The effects of colonisation are very much present in societies even today and are not only reflected in global economic relations and climate change, but also in social relationships, minds and attitudes, and in the transgenerational transfer of traumas. An important question that is raised is whether contemporary psychology confirms the status quo, or it is ready to remedy the effects of past and present unequal and destructive power relations. This issue on decolonisation explores the current trends in psychology, especially from the perspective of the Majority World which is the term now in use for the ‘developing societies’.
Aeon, 2024
In recent years, psychology has come under attack as a racist tool of Western thought. No one can deny that it has been used to stigmatise, categorise, infantilise, manipulate and transform our ways of seeing ourselves, each other and even the very function of civilisation. But the study of the mind has simultaneously been a part of the story of anticolonialism and liberation, a potent tool for overcoming delusion and confusion in the face of oppression and assault.
DOSSIER | Perspectives on Indigenous Psychology in Brazil: ethical and epistemological challenges, 2024
Objective Think about Psychology, as a field of knowledge and care practice, despite its rich polyphony, diversity, and multiplicity, kowing that it is originally linked to dualism, individualism, subjectivism, scientism, Eurocentrism, and professionalism. On the other hand, there are undeniable contributions of Brazilian indigenous peoples. With over three hundred surviving peoples, they offer a vast ethnosociobiodiversity. They bring forth knowledge and practices of care and health based on diverse yet convergent Cosmopolitical references, which are integral, integrative, relational, communal, collective, ritualistic, sacralized, ancestral, intuitive, reciprocal, and undisciplinary, as they do not recognize the fragmentation of knowledge into disciplines, nor do they serve the "disciplining of life". Method This is a scoping review based on the production of contemporary Brazilian indigenous thinkers, bringing their contributions that can and should be recognized by the field of psychology as significant interlocutors in the process of fertilizing and reframing the field towards a psychology that may be decolonial, anticolonial, and yet to come. Results These contributions to help us to think another psychology from the Cosmopolitical reference of Brazil's indigenous peoples. Conclusion We see a turning point, a shift within the psychological field itself, advancing from a decolonial Psychology, countercolonial Psychology, to a possible yet to come Psychology.