De-ideologization, liberation psychology, and the place of contradiction

Abstract

In following Marxist and psychoanalytic theory, we can understand ideologies as social processes that obscure the contradictions (i.e., how an object is not at one with itself) inherent to individual subjectivity and social structures. Despite claiming to be non-ideological, mainstream psychology has, throughout its history, served the ideological interests of elite classes (e.g., by pathologizing political resistance). Working within the liberation psychology paradigm, I attempt in this article to elaborate on the notion of de-ideologization (i.e., the politically committed retrieval of people's experiences beyond the ideological reference points of elite classes) through a consideration of contradiction. To do this, I explore how de-ideologization can connect with contradiction through processes of re-symbolization, solidarity-making, and mobilizing progressive ideologies. Considered together, these three processes allow us to use contradiction to understand interlocking currents of oppression, divergent visions of emancipation, the development of insurgent subjectivities, and the building of an intersectional socialist politics. In conclusion, I consider some of the directions that theoretical and praxis-oriented work on de-ideologization may take, as well as some paths it may wish to avoid.