What and for whom is a decolonising African psychology?

Abstract

Contributing to work that locates the place of psychology in countering coloniality, we explore in this article what and for whom is a decolonising African psychology. We answer these questions not with a definitive statement, but through several moves, signals, and routes. First, we conceptualise African psychology as a kind of transdisciplinary praxis that occurs within psychology as well as outside of the received bounds of the discipline. However, rooting this praxis-oriented psychology within a decolonial attitude ensures that African psychology takes emancipated visions of Africa and of the world from Africa—rather than the disciplinary dictums of psychology—as its starting point. Then, in considering for whom a decolonising African psychology is for, we insist that such a psychology, taken as transdisciplinary praxis, is ultimately for everyone in its humanistic commitment to those lives that have been partialised under coloniality. This commitment does not, however, render a decolonising African psychological praxis immune to recuperation, and measures must be taken to guard against this.