Re-imagining psychology: An Africanist Perspective

Abstract

African nations suffered enslavement, genocide, oppression, colonialism and exploitation. The suffering that African people endured as a result of this affected various aspects of their lives such as their knowledge systems, how they relate to the environment, their spirituality, their history and their overall sense of being. This multidimensional violence was entrenched through the colonial education system, among other things. The university as an institution functions as a site for such violence. At universities, disciplines such as psychology have been used to pathologise people and have contributed to black people being seen as ‘less than’ human. Psychological and intellectual attacks on black people from disciplines such as psychology have played a part in constructing a narrative about African thought and intellect through the use of psychological research that demeaned, undermined and marginalised African ways of living and thinking. In this paper, we argue that for psychological healing to take place, we need to draw from African spirituality, in particular, and African knowledge systems, in general. We draw from a number of Africanist scholars to situate our work, and focus on works of scholars who have been contemplating ways in which African knowledge can assist in dealing with challenges that black people are confronted with at universities and in their communities.