Abstract
The current chapter provides a context for this volume that sets out to critically interrogate the biases in Western modernist thought concerning community and related applied psychologies. A specific focus is to illuminate and consolidate current ontological and epistemic alternatives that contribute to the possibilities of emancipatory futures in various local and global contexts. Across the collection of chapters within the book, decoloniality is articulated in multiple ways, and is manifested in interrelated practices, processes, and knowledge production activities towards social change. Through a review of chapters, we distilled three interrelated categories that refer to practices and principles that are aimed at enacting decoloniality and epistemic justice in community and applied psychologies: (1) Archival reclamation and expansion for onto-epistemic disruption, (2) Knowledge from below and centring voices and subjects from the margins as epistemic justice, and (3) Modes of praxis that encompass critical mutual accompaniment, acknowledge intersectional identities, and are premised upon dialogical ethics. These three categories of decoloniality being enacted are contextual, varied, and must be understood within the circumstances of moving and changeable power relationships that are always socially operant in knowledge production processes, interventions and forms of praxis.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
This series includes ‘Decolonial Feminist Community Psychology’ (Boonzaaier & van Niekerk, 2019) and ‘Decolonial Enactments in Community Psychology’ (Kessi, Suffla, & Seedat, 2021).
References
Adams, G., Dobles, I., Gómez, L. H., Kurtiş, T., & Molina, L. E. (2015). Decolonizing psychological science: Introduction to the special thematic section. Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 3, 213–238.
Anzaldúa, G. (1999). Borderland/La Frontera. San Francisco: Spinsters/Ann Lute.
Bauman, Z. (2012). Times of interregnum. Ethics and Global Politics, 5(1), 49–56. https://doi.org/10.3402/egp.v5i1.17200
Bhatia, S. (2018). Decolonizing psychology: Globalization, social justice, and Indian youth identities. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Boonzaier, F., & van Niekerk, T. (Eds.). (2019). Decolonial feminist community psychology. New York: Springer.
Bulhan, H. A. (1985). Frantz Fanon and the psychology of oppression. London: Plenum Press.
Burton, M., & Kagan, C. (2005). Liberation social psychology: Learning from Latin America. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 15(1), 63–78. https://doi.org/10.1002/casp.786
Carolissen, R. L., & Duckett, P. S. (2018). Teaching toward decoloniality in community psychology and allied disciplines: Editorial introduction. American Journal of Community Psychology, 62(3–4), 241–249. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajcp.12297
Ciofalo, N. (2019). Indigenous psychologies in an era of decolonization. New York: Springer.
Coimbra, J. L., Duckett, P., Fryer, D., Makkawi, I., Menezes, I., Seedat, M., et al. (2012). Rethinking community psychology: Critical insights. The Australian Community Psychologist, 42(2), 135–142.
De Sousa Santos, B. (2007). Beyond Abyssal Thinking: From Global Lines to Ecologies of Knowledges. Review (Fernand Braudel Center), 30(1), 45–89. Retrieved May 18, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40241677
de Sousa Santos, B. (2016). Epistemologies of the South: Justice against epistemicide. New York: Routledge.
Dudgeon, P., Bray, A., D’Costa, B., & Walker, R. (2017). Decolonising psychology: Validating social and emotional wellbeing. Australian Psychologist, 52(4), 316–325. https://doi.org/10.1111/ap.12294
Dudgeon, P., & Walker, R. (2015). Decolonising Australian psychology: Discourses, strategies, and practice. Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 3(1), 276–297. https://doi.org/10.5964/jspp.v3i1.126
Dussel, E. (2003). Philosophy of liberation. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock.
Fernández, J. S., Sonn, C., & Carolissen, R. (2019). Mapping in ad for decolonial transnational critical community psychology. The Community Psychologist, 52(4), 4–7. Retrieved from https://www.scra27.org/publications/tcp/tcp-past-issues
Fernández, J. S., Sonn, C. C., Carolissen, R., Stevens, G. (2021). Roots and Routes Toward Decoloniality Within and Outside Psychology Praxis. Review of General Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1177/10892680211002437
Fine, M. (2015). Global provocations: Critical reflections on community based research and intervention designed at the intersections of global dynamics and local cultures. Community Psychology in Global Perspective, 1(1), 5–15.
Fricker, M. (2007). Epistemic injustice. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198237907.001.0001
Fukuyama, F. (2006). The end of history and the last man (1st Free Press trade pbk ed.). New York: Free Press.
Gramsci, A. (1971). Selections from the prison notebooks of Antonio Gramsci. New York: International Publishers.
Guimarães, D. (2020). Amerindian paths through recurrent sociocultural crises. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/gwNdRcOQ8UY
Humphrys, E. (2015). Anti-politics and the illusions of neoliberalism. Progress in political economy. Retrieved from https://www.ppesydney.net/anti-politics-and-the-illusions-of-neoliberalism/
Kagan, C., Burton, M., Duckett, P., Lawthom, R., & Siddiquee, A. (2019). Critical community psychology: Critical action and social change. New York: Routledge.
Keeley, B. (2015). Income inequality: The gap between rich and poor (OECD insights). Paris: OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264246010-en
Kessi, S. (2017). Community social psychologies for decoloniality: An African perspective on epistemic justice in higher education. South African Journal of Psychology, 47(4), 506–516. https://doi.org/10.1177/0081246317737917
Kessi, S., Suffla, S., & Seedat, M. (2021). Decolonial enactments in community psychology. Springer New York. https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030752002#otherversion=9783030752019
Lugones, M. (2003). Pilgrimages/peregrinajes: Theorizing coalition against multiple oppressions. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Lugones, M. (2010). Toward a decolonial feminism. Hypatia, 25(4), 742–759. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1527-2001.2010.01137.x
Mair, P. (2013). Ruling the void: The hollowing of Western democracy. London: Verso.
Maldonado-Torres, N. (2011). Thinking through the decolonial turn: Post-continental interventions in theory, philosophy, and critique – An introduction. Transmodernity Journal of Peripheral Cultural Production of the Luso-Hispanic World, 1(2).
Maldonado-Torres, N. (2016). Outline of ten theses on coloniality and decoloniality. Fondation Frantz Fanon. Retrieved from https://fondation-frantzfanon.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/maldonado-torres_outline_of_ten_theses-10.23.16.pdf
Martin, K., & Mirraboopa, B. (2003). Ways of knowing, being and doing: A theoretical framework and methods for indigenous and indigenist research. Journal of Australian Studies, 27(76), 203–214.
Martín-Baró, I., Aron, A., & Corne, S. (1994). Writings for a liberation psychology (2. print). Boston: Harvard University Press.
Mignolo, W. D., & Walsh, C. E. (2018). On decoloniality: Concepts, analytics, praxis. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Montero, M. (2007). The political psychology of liberation: From politics to ethics and back. Political Psychology, 28(5), 517–533.
Montero, M., & Sonn, C. C. (2009). About liberation and psychology: An introduction. In M. Montero & C. Sonn (Eds.), Psychology of liberation: Theory and applications (pp. 1–10). New York: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-85784-8
Montero, M., Sonn, C. C., & Burton, M. (2017). Community psychology and liberation psychology. In M. A. Bond, I. Serrano-García, & C. B. Keys (Eds.), APA handbook of community psychology (Vol. 1: Theoretical foundations, core concepts, and emerging challenges, pp. 149–167). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Moreton-Robinson, A. (Ed.). (2004). Whitening race: Essays in social and cultural criticism. Aboriginal Studies Press.
Ndlovu Gatsheni, S. (2020, April). Planetary human entanglements and the crisis of living together (Video file). YouTube. https://youtu.be/LgHxsXIMNRM
Ortiz Torres, B. (2020). Decoloniality and community-psychology practice in Puerto Rico: Autonomous organising (autogestión) and self-determination. International Review of Psychiatry, 32(4), 359–364. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540261.2020.1761776
Pickett, K. E., & Wilkinson, R. G. (2015). Income inequality and health: A causal review. Social Science & Medicine, 128, 316–326. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2014.12.031
Quijano, A. (2000). Coloniality of power and Eurocentrism in Latin America. International Sociology, 15(2), 215–232.
Ratele, K. (2019). The world looks like this from here: Thoughts on African psychology. Johannesburg, South Africa: Wits University Press.
Ratele, K., Cornell, J., Dlamini, S., Helman, R., Malherbe, N., & Titi, N. (2018). Some basic questions about (a) decolonizing Africa (n)-centred psychology considered. South Africa Journal of Psychology, 48(3), 331–342.
Rappaport, J. (1977). Community psychology: Values, research, and action. Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Reyes Cruz, M., & Sonn, C. (2015). (De)colonizing culture in community psychology: Reflections from critical social science. In R. Goodman & P. Gorski (Eds.), Decolonizing “multicultural” counseling through social justice (pp. 127–146). New York: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-1283-4
Rigney, L. (1997). Internalisation of an indigenous anti-colonial cultural critique of research methodologies: A guide to indigenous research methodologies and its principles. Journal of American Studies, 14(2), 109–122.
Roy, A. (2020, April 2). The pandemic is a portal. Financial Times. Retrieved from https://www.ft.com/content/10d8f5e8-74eb-11ea-95fe-fcd274e920ca
Seedat, M., Suffla, S., & Christie, D. J. (2017). Emancipatory and participatory methodologies in peace, critical, and community psychology. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63489-0
Sloan, T. (2018, July). On waking up to coloniality: An invitation. Retrieved from http://www.parkmoreinstitute.org/on-waking-up-to-coloniality-an-invitation/
Smith, L. T. (1999). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and indigenous peoples (1st edition). Zed Books.
Sonn, C., Rua, M., & Quayle, A. (2019). Decolonising applied social psychology: Culture, indigeneity and coloniality. In K. O’Doherty & D. Hodgetts (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of applied social psychology (pp. 39–57). Boston: SAGE.
Stevens, G. (2016). Rethinking the psychosociality of violence: Economies of morality, embodied enactments and affective practices. Inaugural lecture presented at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, 30 August 2016.
Stevens, G. (2017). Critical psychosocial mnemonics as a decolonising participatory method: Towards reclaiming and refiguring the archive through memory, stories and narratives. In M. Seedat, S. Suffla, & D. J. Christie (Eds.), Peace psychology book series. Emancipatory and participatory methodologies in peace, critical, and community psychology (pp. 179–199). New York: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63489-0_14
Stevens, G. (2018a). Raced repetition: Perpetual paralysis or paradoxical promise. Keynote presentation at the (Re)imagining Liberations: Instutionalised Despair*Critical Hope Conference, 06–08 August 2018. Johannesburg: University of the Witwatersrand.
Stevens, G. (2018b). Raced repetition: Perpetual paralysis or paradoxical promise. International Journal of Critical Diversity Studies, 1(2), 42–57.
Stevens, G., Duncan, N., & Sonn, C. (2010). The apartheid archive: Memory, voice and narrative as liberatory praxis. Psychology in Society, 40, 08–28. Retrieved May 31, 2020, from http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1015-60462010000200002&lng=en&tlng=en
Sullivan, S., & Tuana, N. (Eds.). (2007). Race and epistemologies of ignorance. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Teo, T. (2005). The critique of psychology: From Kant to postcolonial theory. Springer.
Therborn, G. (2009). The killing fields of inequality. Soundings, 42. London: Lawrence and Wishart.
Visvanathan, S. (2009). 597 Shiv Visvanathan, The search for cognitive justice. Retrieved May 25, 2020, from https://www.india-seminar.com/2009/597/597_shiv_visvanathan.htm
Walsh, C. E. (2015). Decolonial pedagogies walking and asking. Notes to Paulo Freire from AbyaYala. International Journal of Lifelong Education, 34(1), 9–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/02601370.2014.991522
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Sonn, C.C., Stevens, G. (2021). Tracking the Decolonial Turn in Contemporary Community Psychology: Expanding Socially Just Knowledge Archives, Ways of Being and Modes of Praxis. In: Stevens, G., Sonn, C.C. (eds) Decoloniality and Epistemic Justice in Contemporary Community Psychology. Community Psychology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72220-3_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72220-3_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-72219-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-72220-3
eBook Packages: Behavioral Science and PsychologyBehavioral Science and Psychology (R0)