Conundrums in teaching decolonial critical community psychology within the context of neo‐liberal market pressures

Abstract

In this paper, we provide empirically informed reflections on the difficulty of undertaking critically inflected, decolonial praxis in community psychology within the overdetermined global order of neo-liberalism. Using interviews with 10 alumni of the Masters in Community-Based Counselling (MACC) psychology program at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in South Africa, we extend what have hitherto been largely theoretical debates about the fundamental constraints on teaching decolonial theory as an important touchstone of criticality in the context of the constraining forces of the free-market economy. We focus on our participants' attempts to navigate the inevitable tensions between the tenets of decolonial critical community psychology and neo-liberal market pressures on employability. We analyze accounts of job-seeking and employment experiences of the program alumni to ask whether we may have to contemplate the imminent evacuation of critical community epistemologies within the context of a market-structured and professionally regulated psychology. We suggest that while the death knell of critical pedagogies and epistemologies has not yet quite arrived, more nuanced approaches to criticality may have to be adopted

Psychology as a site for decolonial analysis

“…Canham et al. (2022) come to a similar conclusion about professional discipline in their “empirically informed reflections” (p. 366) about a survey of alumni from their critically oriented graduate program in community‐based counseling. The dynamic they describe is one that will be familiar to many readers.…”

“…More generally, they conclude that the success of decolonial work outside the classroom requires detachment or de‐linking from “what is traditionally considered legitimate psychological practice and professionalization” (Canham et al., 2022, p. 366). They note that this conclusion echoes other contributions to this special issue (e.g., Atallah & Dutta, 2022), which suggest that “decolonial praxis…may require moving away from the constraining, stifling borders of knowledge and methods of the academy or psychology itself” (Canham et al., 2022, p. 366).…”

“And now we resist”: Three testimonios on the importance of decoloniality within psychology

“…Community psychology must shift to better prepare students, and future academics, to the alternate possibilities for the field. As Canham et al (2021) suggest, we cannot stop at decolonizing the classroom, or our own praxis, for that matter. If we continue to live in a world that pushes back on decolonial tactics, how might we envision the use of decolonial methods such as testimonio to amplify silenced voices-to make the seen and unheard become visible vibrating echoes of resistance?…”

Accounting for colonial complicities throughRefusalsin researching agency across borders

“…Support and shield students and colleagues who are striving to operate in subversive and decolonizing ways; listen, and learn from them, and cultivate space for the sharing of “involved stories” that speak to the discomfort and unease of being complicit in the coloniality of social science research. Furthermore, co‐conspire and mobilize (also with alumni [see Canham et al., 2022] and movements and communities outside of academia) against the precariousness that pervades so much of this work.…”