PINS-Psychology in Society

Dismantling the Master’s House: Toward Epistemologies of Resistance and Freedom Dreaming

Urmitapa Dutta — Fri, 06 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

What does it mean to reimagine inquiry in psychology as the academy, nation state regimes, and markets discipline the terms of what it means to be human? Drawing upon the wisdom of Black, Indigenous, Palestinian, and other feminists of color, I explore what it means to bear faithful witness to (settler) colonial violence and genocide. Situated in the context of Israeli settler colonial occupation and the persecution of Palestinian knowledge traditions and knowledge keepers, this article strives to chart a defiant methodology that resists analytic closure. Reflecting on scenes from occupied Palestine and weaving together insights from decolonial scholar-activists, I center the body as insurgent knowledge and method to counter settler colonial logics of elimination and erasure. Simultaneously, I explore freedom dreams as embodied, emancipatory wisdom and abolitionist inquiry. Across these critical engagements, I contend with the kinds of radical re-imaginings and paradigmatic shifts that freedom dreams call for. Do we dare to rethink social inquiry as radical imaginary praxis – an antidote to indifference and atrophying revolutionary sensibilities? Grappling with these issues, I advocate for inquiry as a combative praxis aligned with the material demands of decolonization, striving to unleash our radical imaginaries toward building pluriversal, liberated futures.

You’re brought in as a workhorse and there's no real security here! Postdocs, precarity and the neoliberal university in South Africa

Mlamuli Nkosingphile Hlatshwayo — Tue, 10 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The literature on postdoctoral research fellows (hereafter postdocs) is bleak. Largely dominated by the global North scholars in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia, this literature has provided an important insight into understanding the complex and nuanced experiences of postdocs and the struggles they encounter in navigating the publish or perish imperatives, the absence of a coherent pathway between the postdoc and permanent employment in academia and the constant job hopping that characterises the postdoc journey. In this paper, I share a portion of the findings of a national project focusing on three universities in South Africa, drawing on the experiences of current and former postdocs on the precarity, casualisation and job insecurity that they are facing. This is done through interviews with 23 current and former postdocs, a current university director of research and a former national department of higher education and training senior official. The findings reveal mainly two important aspects of the postdoc journey, 1) the crippling challenges of the employment insecurity and job insecurity on postdocs’ wellbeing and livelihood, as well as the 2) the often hidden, un-seen and invisible “motherhood penalty” that women postdoc experience in attempting to balance motherhood and the demands of the postdoc. I end the paper with concluding thoughts on the future of the postdoc system in higher education, and the urgent interventions that are required to support these marginalised and precarious scholars.

Challenging the nexus: Integrating Western psychology and African cultural beliefs in South African mental health care

Daniel Lesiba Letsoalo, Yaseen Ally, Wandile Fundo Tsabedze, Curwyn Mapaling — Fri, 06 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This article delves into the unique sociocultural landscape of mental healthcare in South Africa, spotlighting the divergent conceptualisations of mental illness inherent in African and Western cultures. While acknowledging certain similarities, it emphasises the importance of integrating African-centred perspectives into psychology’s training and practice. We contend that the prevailing focus on Western approaches to mental illness not only marginalises indigenous beliefs but also perpetuates the dominance of Western medical paradigms in healthcare systems. This trend risks pathologising the African experience of mental health and narrowing the understanding of African humanity through a lens of psychiatrisation and medicalisation. The article advocates for a more formal, integrative approach to mental healthcare that recognises and incorporates African notions of illness and health, underscoring the centrality of culture in the healing process. Our discourse calls for a paradigm shift towards an integrative model that respects and combines the strengths of both Western and African approaches to mental health, thereby fostering a culturally sensitive, inclusive, and effective mental healthcare system in South Africa.

The experiences of race relations amongst student leaders at a historically white South African university

Hlengiwe Selowa, Benny Motileng — Tue, 10 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Recent protest movements such as #Rhodesmustfall and #FeesMustFall have highlighted uneasy race relations at South African universities. Although such incidents are crucial, equally important are the everyday realities of race relations that continue to define student lives in these institutions. The purpose of this study was to provide an understanding of student leaders’ experiences of race relations at a historically white South African university. Guided by a qualitative research approach, Critical Race Theory (CRT) was the framework we used to explore race relations amongst student leaders. Purposive sampling was employed to recruit six student leaders across racial groups. They participated in a forty-five-minute semi-structured interview. Interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) was used to analyse the data. The findings suggest that the history and identities of universities as racially segregated in an unequal society, impacts race relations. Racial discrimination and distrust hamper racial integration in the student body and external political factors also affect student leaders’ experiences of race relations. Our findings do show that friendships present an important opportunity to foster positive race relations, even though friendships are largely class dependent. We recommend that universities invest in personnel diversity training and the creation of platforms for intercultural and interracial exchanges.

Trans-Inclusive Feminist Praxis: Shifting Religious and Familial Gendered Violence Towards Transgender Acceptance–A USA Case Study

Ezra N. S. Lockhart — Fri, 06 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Building on the analysis of gender-based violence (GBV) within the lives of black trans women in South Africa, as explored by Shabalala, Boonzaier, and Chirape (2023) in Challenging Ciscentric Feminist Margins, this briefing extends the conversation to the themes of ciscentric oppression, structural violence, and intersectionality in the context of a pilot study I conducted (Lockhart, 2024). The work of Shabalala et al. (2023) calls for intersectional frameworks that challenge cisnormativity, patriarchal violence, and gender performativity—central concepts in understanding the marginalization of trans individuals. Their work powerfully illuminates the ways in which cisgendered and patriarchal norms systematically marginalise trans individuals, particularly trans women of color, through both overt and subtle forms of violence.
In a similar vein, my case study of a biracial family in Louisiana, USA, and their 17-year-old trans son, explores how ciscentric gender norms, compounded by religious, racial, and socio-cultural factors, shape the family’s experience of gendered violence and hinder the adolescent’s agency and autonomy, complicating his transition to legal adulthood and his pursuit of self-determination.

Riotous Deathscapes and New Psychologies: Toward Ecoscapes of Decolonial Desire

Urmitapa Dutta — Fri, 06 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Ka Canham, H. (2023).

Riotous Deathscapes.

Duke University Press. 228 pages.

E-ISBN: 978-1-4780-1959-6

Hardcover ISBN978-1-4780-2422-4

Psychology's Crisis of Place

Nick Malherbe — Fri, 06 Dec 2024 11:49:20 +0000

Dlamini, S. (2024).

Beyond the pretty white affair: Training Africa-centring psychologists for the future.

Unisa Press. 121 pages.

ISBN: 978-1-77615-204-9