Critical psychology in South Africa: Applications, limitations, possibilities (original) (raw)
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2001 Meanings of psychology as politics PP.pdf
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). The (social) psychological legacy for political psychology
We contribute to a greater understanding of political psychology by 1) collecting data in a more systematic way for the intellectual community, 2) sensitizing students to the extent to which any intellectual discipline is socially constructed and is a work in progress, 3) heightening awareness of the political aspects of intellectual life, 4) exposing readers to the wide variety of diverse approaches and methodologies utilized by political psychologists, and 5) suggesting the range of topics that political psychology can address successfully and the range of techniques it can utilize.
Political Psychology: Critical Perspectives
2013
This book provides an introduction to political psychology through a focus on European politics and topics. It describes a style of doing political psychology in Europe that has developed out of dialogue with as well as critique of North American approaches. By emphasising the theoretical and methodological diversity of political psychology, the book is intended to contribute to a greater understanding of the strength and utility of the field. • Opens up and extends the study of political psychology to a variety of socio-political contexts and manifestations of political behaviour • Clearly outlines the usefulness and promises of distinctive critical approaches in social and political psychology • Explicitly considers the role of language, communication, identity and social representations in the construction of political meanings. Political Psychology will appeal to upper-level students and scholars who seek to extend their knowledge of the complex relationship between psychology, politics and society.
Oxford Encyclopedia of the History of Psychology, 2020
Psychology's phenomenal growth in the twentieth century stemmed in part from the alliances it formed with powerful bureaucratic elites. The discipline's proximity to power, however, meant not only that it could be co-opted ideologically but also that it could collude with oppressive regimes to enhance its own prestige. Project CAMELOT is one example where psychologists were willing to cooperate with the United States military in the service of a foreign policy that terrorized Latin America. The discipline also thrived under the Nazis with psychologists heavily involved in meeting the operational needs of the Wehrmacht. Afrikaner psychologists in South Africa formed a close association with the apartheid state in both ideological and practical terms. More recently, the involvement of the American Psychological Association in a torture scandal has drawn attention once again to the discipline's potential for collusion with institutional powers. In historiographic terms, some will take issue with the delivery of moral judgments when documenting the history of Psychology. However, the writing of history does not preclude such judgments, especially at a time when the exercise of power permeates disciplinary, institutional, and social life.
Psychology and Politics: Intersections of Science and Ideology in the History of Psy-Sciences
2019
Psy-sciences (psychology, psychiatry, psychoanalysis, pedagogy, criminology, special education, etc.) have been connected to politics in diverse ways during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This relationship manifests itself either through direct political pressure or through more general and subtle interactions between cultural and social processes and scientific currents and practices. The book collects ideas and findings on the history and politics of psy-sciences including scientific and theoretical discourses, institutions, and professionals. This volume will allow us to compare the development of the psy-sciences and the institutions in which they are practiced in Eastern European with developments in other regions. Concerning the history of these disciplines, demarcations and shifts instigated by power relations can be found within scientific movements and schools in the field of psychology, psychiatry, and psychoanalysis. But when closely investigated, politics can also be grasped in the epistemology of psysciences and in the governmental practices based on them. Human relations, emotions, everyday ethical principles, etc. have become conceivable in psychological terms, thus giving way to practices of normalization, as well as their utilization and manipulation by political decision-makers and diverse institutions. What is the form and dissemination of certain regimes of truth as they are reformed and as they become the center of old and new ideological struggles? What are the historical-political processes that influence the fields of psy-knowledge, inducing transformations of professional perceptions of the 1 The research team was formed within the Social and Cultural Psychology Group of the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. The team was headed by Anna Borgos and its members included Balázs Berkovits, Ferenc Erős, Melinda Friedrich, Júlia Gyimesi, Melinda Kovai, and Dóra Máriási. The research was funded by the Hungarian National Scientific Research Fund (OTKA) between 2013 and 2017. The history of our research group goes back to the late 2000s, when the editors of the present volume, in collaboration with other colleagues, began their systematic explorations into the history of Hungarian psychoanalysis, as well as delved into the methodological and epistemological questions, gender issues, and cultural and political aspects related to it.
Oxford University Press, 2021
Critical psychology comprises a broad range of international approaches centered around theories and practices of critique, power, resistance, and alternatives of practice. Although critical psychology had an axial age in and around the 1970s, many sources can be found decades and even centuries earlier. Critical psychology is not only about the critique of psychology, which is a broader historical and theoretical field, but about doing justice in and through theory, justice with and to groups of people, and justice to the reality of society, history, and culture as they powerfully constitute subjectivity, as well as the discipline and profession of psychology. Doing justice in and through psychological theory has a strong basis in Western critical approaches, representing a privileged position of reflection in Euro-American research institutions. Critical psychologists argue that traditional psychology is missing its subject matter and hence is not doing justice in methodology, and its practices of control and adjustment are not doing justice to the emancipatory possibilities of human agency or human science. Critical psychologists who are attempting to do justice with and to human beings are not neglecting the onto- epistemic-ethical domain, but are instead focusing on people, often marginalized or oppressed groups. Critical psychologists who want to do justice in history, culture, and society have argued that traditional psychological practice means adaption and adjustment. This means that not only subjectivity, but also the discipline and profession of psychology need to be connected with contexts. Psychologists have attempted to conceptualize the relationship between society and the individual, as well as the ability of humans not only to adapt to an environment but to change their living conditions and transform the status quo. This conceptualization also means providing concrete analyses of how current society, based in neoliberal capitalism, not only impacts individuals but also the discipline of psychology. Despite the complexities of critical psychology around the world, critical psychologists emphasize the importance of reflexivity and praxis when it comes to changing the conditions of social reality that create mental life. Given that subjectivity cannot be limited to intra-psychological processes, critical psychologists attend to relational and structural societal realities, requiring inter- and transdisciplinarity in the discipline and profession.