A quest for global psychology (original) (raw)

Decolonial, countercolonial, yet to come Psychology? Ricardo Luiz Narciso Moebus, Alexandre Franca Barreto, Maristela de Melo Moraes

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.

Reflections on the local and the global in psychology: innovation, liberation and testimonio

This paper presents some reflections on the process of creating research, from the point of view of a psychologist working in an academic environment in a developing country which is undergoing social transformation. It explores some tensions between global and local concerns in research, and reflects on the relation between research, art, narration, and the person of the researcher. The ideas presented are based on the personal reflections of the author after developing a methodology for a qualitative research project. The aim is to open up areas of inquiry into the process of constructing research, rather than providing final answers, thus honouring the postmodern assumptions that are tentatively put forward as vehicle of innovation in research in a global psychology. Between the Local and the Global: Innovation, Liberation and Testimonio "The challenges of today's world require a 'new' psychology… We need to be aware of the risks of a global 'monocultural&#39...

Decolonizing Psychology

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.

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...

Coloniality and perspectivism in psychology: from damnation to ecosophical care relations

International Review of Psychiatry, 2020

Inspired by Amerindian peoples’ philosophy, this article aims to problematise the modern philosophical anthropology that underlies psychology as a social practice, and to use the Amerindian perspectivist philosophy proposed by Viveiros de Castro as a critique of Western values. Thus, we approach some of coloniality’s epistemological implications in the institution of subject-object and nature-culture separations that grounds psychology. On the one hand, there is a totalising unification, which operates alongside a transcendental subject that subjugates its object. Beginning from nature’s homogeneity, the differentiation and hierarchy of each being depends on its representations or its soul, expressed as a people’s culture or as an individual psychology. This spiritual-representational aspect is the very foundation of the colonialism and racism of damnation, and their purpose in perpetuating the miserable ways of life of those considered to be scum. On the other hand, in Amerindian cosmogony, humanity is a pronominal mode, a non-exclusive perspectivist position of mankind, built in each context of relations. It is based on this idea that we posit other bases and a new agenda for psychology as a social practice which can enable us to broaden our ways of living towards ecosophical care, as a way of resistance to coloniality.

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.