Expanding conceptions of liberation: Holding Marxisms with liberation psychology

Abstract

By considering how psychologists are able to hold (that is, support distinctive ontologies) Liberation Psychology (LP) with Marxisms, this article interrogates psychological approaches to liberation in two ways. First, against the foundations of LP and Marxisms, as well as attempts to formulate psychological Marxisms and Marxist psychologies, the paper examines how holding LP with Marxisms facilitates a necessarily expansive, innovative, and democratic conception of liberation. Second, by exploring matters related to history, epistemology, reflexivity, and the State, a theoretical holding of this kind is shown to permit psychologists nuanced ways of engaging complex psychosocial phenomena in their work. It is concluded that by holding LP with Marxisms, psychologists employ a sensitivity towards a local–global nexus of interlocking liberation struggles, while taking seriously matters of power, space, time, identity, violence, and freedom.