Abstract
This article argues for the development of a historical perspective to help understand the process of indigenization in psychology. The indigenization of psychology in both the United States and India is shown to be part of larger social, economic, and political processes. A center and periphery model of knowledge production and praxes is deployed to show how practices of scientific imperialism are used to maintain the hegemony of the center. It is argued that historical approaches may be useful to challenge and counter such practices. Finally, the authors call for a polycentric history of psychology that will correspond to the emerging polycentrism exemplified in indigenous psychologies.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Baritz, L. (1960). Servants of power. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.
Bhatia, S. (2007). American karma: Race, culture, and identity in the Indian diaspora. New York: New York University Books.
Bond, M.H. (1997). Working at the interface of cultures: Eighteen lives in social science. New York: Routledge.
Brush, S. (1974). Should the history of science be rated X? Science, 183, 1164–1172.
Coon, D.J. (1992). Testing the limits of sense and science: American experimental psychologists combat spiritualism, 1880-1920. American Psychologist, 47, 143–151.
Danziger, K. (1985). The origins of the psychological experiment as a social institution. American Psychologist, 40, 133–140.
Danziger, K. (1994). Does the history of psychology have a future? Theory and Psychology, 4, 467–484.
Danziger, K. (2006). Universalism and indigenization in the history of modern psychology. In A.C. Brock (Ed.), Internationalizing the history of psychology (pp. 208–225). New York: New York University Press.
Escobar, A. (1995). Encountering development: The making and unmaking of the Third World. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Fuchs, A. H. & Viney, W. (2002). The course in the history of psychology: Present status and future concerns. History of Psychology, 5, 3–15.
Fuchs, A. (2000). Contributions of American mental philosophers to psychology in the United States. History of Psychology, 3, 3–19.
Fuller, R.C. (1982). Mesmerism and the American cure of souls. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Gergen, K. (1992). The saturated self: Dilemmas of identity in contemporary life. New York: Basic Books.
Graham, L., Lepenies, W., & Weingart, P. (Eds.). (1983). Functions and uses of disciplinary histories. Hingham, MA: D. Reidel.
Hermans, H.J.M., & Kempen, H.J.G. (1998). Moving cultures: The perilous problems of cultural dichotomies in a globalizing society. American Psychologist, 53, 1111–1120.
Kim, U., & Berry, J.W. (Eds.). (1993). Indigenous psychologies: Research and experience in cultural context. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Kim, U., Yang, K.S., & Hwang, K.K. (2006). Indigenous and cultural psychology: Understanding people in context. New York: Springer.
Latham, M.E, (2003). Modernization, international history, and the Cold War world. In D.C. Engerman, N. Gilman, M.H. Haefele, & M.E. Latham (Eds.), Staging growth: Modernization, development, and the global cold war (pp. 1–22). Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press.
Livingstone, D.N. (2003). Putting science in its place: Geographies of scientific knowledge. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Martin-Baro, I. (1996). Writings for a liberation psychology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
McClelland, D.C., & Winter, D.G. (1969). Motivating economic achievement. New York: Free Press.
Misra, G. (2006). Psychology and societal development: Paradigmatic and social concerns. New Delhi: Concept Publishing.
Nsamenang, A.B. (2004). Cultures of human development and education: Challenge to growing up African. New York: Nova Science.
O’Donnell, J. (1979). The crisis of experimentalism in the 1920s: E.G. Boring and his uses of history. American Psychologist, 34, 289–295.
Pickren, W.E. (2000). A whisper of salvation: American psychologists and religion in the popular press, 1884-1908. American Psychologist, 55, 1022–1024.
Pickren, W.E. (2007). Tension and opportunity in post-World War II American psychology. History of Psychology, 10, 279–299.
Pieterse, J. (2004). Globalization or Empire? New York and London, Routledge.
Rao, K.R., Paranjpe, A., & Dalal, A.K. (2008). Handbook of Indian Psychology. New Delhi: New Foundation Books.
Rice, C.E. (2005). The research grants program of the National Institute of Mental Health and the golden age of American academic psychology. In W.E. Pickren & S.F. Schneider (Eds.), Psychology and the National Institute of Mental Health: A historical analysis of science, practice, and policy (pp. 61–111). Washington, DC: APA Books.
Rose, N. (1991). Power and subjectivity: Critical history and psychology. http://www.academyanalyticarts.org/rose1.htm. Retrieved April 3, 2009.
Rose, N. (1998). Inventing our selves: Psychology, power, and personhood. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Samelson, F. (1977). World War I intelligence testing and the development of psychology. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 13, 274–282.
Schmit, D. (2005). Re-visioning American antebellum psychology: The dissemination of mesmerism, 1836-1854. History of Psychology, 8, 403–434.
Sinha, D. (1969). Indian villages in transition: A motivational analysis. New Delhi: Associated Press.
Sinha, D. (1986). Psychology in a Third World country: The Indian experience. Delhi: Sage.
Sinha, D. (1998). Changing perspectives in social psychology in India: A journey towards indigenization. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 1. 17–31.
Sinha, J.B.P. (1995). Factors facilitating and impeding growth of psychology in South Asia, with special reference to India. International Journal of Psychology, 30, 741–753.
Sinha, J.B.P. (1997). In search of my Brahman. In M.H. Bond (Ed.), Working at the interface of cultures: Eighteen lives in social science (pp. 77–84). New York: Routledge.
Smith, L.T. (1999). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and indigenous peoples. London: Zed Books.
Smith, R. (1997). The Norton history of the human sciences. New York: Norton.
Srinivas, M.N. (1966). Social change in modern India. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Taves, A. (1999). Fits, trances, and visions: Experiencing religion and explaining experience from Wesley to James. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Taylor, E. (1999). Shadow culture: Psychology and spirituality in America. Washington, DC: Counterpoint.
Westad, O.A. (2007). The global cold war: Third World interventions and the making of our times. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Young, R.M. (1966). Scholarship and the history of the behavioural sciences. History of Science, 2, 1–51.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Pickren, W.E. Indigenization and the history of psychology. Psychol Stud 54, 87–95 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12646-009-0012-7
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12646-009-0012-7