Abstract
In this chapter, we argue that the quest for decolonised community psychologies must necessarily engage with multiple knowledge archives. We draw on select historiographic accounts of Africa to invoke Africa’s archives and their attendant paradigmatic traditions. Our engagements with these archives signify at once onto-epistemic rupture as a counterpoint to the Eurocentric assumptions that continue to frame community psychology theory and practice in Africa and other parts of the Global South, and epistemic praxis as a decolonising response, inspired by the subalternised knowledges of Africa. We extend our analysis to theorise Black Consciousness philosophy as an insurrectionist archive that may be mobilised for liberatory articulations of community psychology in Africa. We accord primacy to the exposition of collectivist and humanising ontology—anchored in psycho-political praxis and activism—as a foremost contribution by the Black Consciousness Movement to the making of liberatory enactments of community psychology.
Each generation must out of relative obscurity discover its mission, fulfill it, or betray it.
(Fanon, 1963, p. 206)
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Almeida, S. (2015). Race-based epistemologies: The role of race and dominance in knowledge production. Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women’s and Gender Studies, 13, 79–105.
Appel, S. W. (1989). “Outstanding individuals do not arise from ancestrally poor stock”. Racial science and the education of Black South Africans. Journal of Negro Education, 58, 544–546.
Azanian People’s Organisation (AZAPO). (n.d.). Black Consciousness. Retrieved from http://azapo.org.za/about-azapo/black-consciousness/
Barnes, B., & Siswana, A. (2018). Psychology and decolonisation. Special issue. South African Journal of Psychology, 48(3), 297–399.
Biko, S. (2004). I write what I like. Picador Africa.
Bulhan, H. A. (1981). Psychological research in Africa: Genesis and function. Race & Class, 23, 13–42.
Bulhan, H. A. (1985). Frantz Fanon and the psychology of oppression. Plenum.
Bulhan, H. A. (2015). Stages of colonialism in Africa: From occupation of land to occupation of being. Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 3(1), 239–256.
Cabral, A. (1979). Unity and struggle: Speeches and writings. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Carnegie Commission Report. (1932). The poor White problem in South Africa. Pro Ecclesia Press.
Carolissen, R. L., & Duckett, P. S. (2018). Teaching toward decoloniality in community psychology and allied disciplines. Special issue. American Journal of Community Psychology, 62(3–4), 239–509.
Carton, B. (1990, May). Civilizing “civilized labour.” Poor Whites, poor roads and poor relief in Cradock, 1926-1934. Paper presented at the South African Research Program, Spring Seminar, Yale University, New Haven, CT.
Cooper, S., Nicholas, L., Seedat, M., & Statman, J. (1990). Psychology and apartheid: Struggle for psychology in South Africa. In N. J. Nicholas & S. Cooper (Eds.), Psychology and apartheid: Essays on the struggle and the mind in South Africa (pp. 1–21). Johannesburg, South Africa: Vision/Madiba Press.
Cooper, S., & Ratele, K. (2018). The Black Consciousness psychology of Steve Biko. In S. Fernando & R. Moodley (Eds.), Global psychologies: Mental health and the Global South (pp. 245–260). Palgrave Macmillan.
de Sousa Santos, B. (2018). The end of the cognitive empire: The coming of age of epistemologies of the South. Duke University Press.
Dei, G. J. S. (2000). Rethinking the role of Indigenous knowledges in the academy. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 4(2), 111–132.
Dei, G. J. S. (2012). Indigenous anti-colonial knowledge as ‘heritage knowledge’ for promoting Black/African education in diasporic contexts. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 1(1), 102–119.
Dei, G. J. S. (2018). “Black like me”: Reframing blackness for decolonial politics. Educational Studies, 54(2), 117–142.
Dineo Gqola, P. (2001). Contradictory locations: Blackwomen and the discourse of the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) in South Africa. Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism., 2(1), 130–152.
Fanon, F. (1963). The wretched of the earth. Grove Weidenfeld.
Fanon, F. (1965). A dying colonialism. Grove Press.
Fanon, F. (1967). Black skins, white masks. Grove Press.
Goolam, N. M. I. (2006). The Timbuktu manuscripts - Rediscovering a written source of African law in the era of the African renaissance. Fundamina: A Journal of Legal History, 12(2), 29–50.
Gordon, L. R. (2000). Existentia Africana: Understanding Africana existential thought. Routledge.
Grosfoguel, R. (2013). The structure of knowledge in westernized universities: Epistemic racism/sexism and the four genocides/epistemicides of the long 16th century. Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge, 11(1), 73–90.
Hadfield, L. A. (2017). Steve Biko and the Black Consciousness Movement. Retrieved from http://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore9780190277734-e-83
Hall, S. (2001). Constituting an archive. Third Text, 15(54), 89–92.
Hartman, S. (2007). Lose your mother: A journey along the Atlantic slave route. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Hook, D. (2004). Frantz Fanon, Steve Biko, ‘psychopolitics’ and critical psychology’. In D. Hook (Ed.), Critical psychology (pp. 84–114). Juta.
Letlaka-Rennert, K. (1990). Soweto street children. Implications of family disintegration for South African psychologists. In L. J. Nicholas & S. Cooper (Eds.), Psychology and apartheid. Essays on the struggle for psychology and the mind in South Africa (pp. 100–114). Vision.
Louw, J. (1986a). White poverty and psychology in South Africa: The poor White investigation of the Carnegie Commission. Psychology in Society, 6, 47–62.
Louw, J. (1986b). This is thy work: A contextual history of applied psychology and labour in South Africa. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Amsterdam University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Macas, L. A. (2004). Diversity and plurinationality. Boletín ICC I-ARY Rimay, 6(64). Retrieved from http://icci.nativeweb.org/boletin/64/macas.html
MacGaffey, W. (1981). African ideology and belief: A survey. African Studies Review, 24(2/3), 227–274.
Magaziner, D. R. (2011). Pieces of a (wo)man: Feminism, gender and adulthood in Black Consciousness, 1968–1977. Journal of Southern African Studies, 37(1), 45–61.
Maldonado-Torres, N. (2007). On the coloniality of being: Contributions to the development of a concept. Cultural Studies, 21(2–3), 240–270.
Maldonado-Torres, N. (2008). Against war. Views from the underside of modernity. Duke University Press.
Maldonado-Torres, N. (2016). Outline of ten theses on coloniality and decoloniality. Retrieved from http://fondation-frantzfanon.com/outline-of-ten-theses-on-coloniality-and-decoloniality/
Maldonado-Torres, N. (2017). On the coloniality of human rights. Revista Crítica de Ciências Sociais, 114, 117–136.
Maldonado-Torres, N. (2018). The decolonial turn. In J. Poblete (Ed.), New approaches to Latin American studies: Culture and power (pp. 111–127). Routledge.
Mamdani, M. (2012). Define and rule: Native as political identity. Harvard University Press.
Manganyi, N. C. (1973). Being-black-in-the-world. Ravan Press.
Mangena, M. J. O. (2008). The Black Consciousness philosophy and the women’s question in South Africa: 1970-1980. In A. Mngxitama, A. Alexander, & N. C. Gibson (Eds.), Biko lives (pp. 253–266). Palgrave Macmillan.
Mazrui, A. A. (2005). The re-invention of Africa: Edward Said, V.Y. Mudimbe and beyond. Research in African Literatures, 36(3), 68–82.
Mignolo, W., & Walsh, C. (2018). On decoloniality: Concepts, analytics, praxis. Duke University Press.
Mngxitama, A., Alexander, A., & Gibson, N. C. (Eds.). (2008). Biko lives! Contesting the legacies of Steve Biko. Palgrave Macmillan.
Moodley, S. (Ed.). (2018). Time to remember: Reflections of women from the Black Consciousness Movement. Women for Awareness.
More, M. P. (2008). Biko: Africana existentialist philosopher. In A. Mngxitama, A. Alexander, & N. C. Gibson (Eds.), Biko lives! Contesting the legacies of Steve Biko (pp. 45–68). Palgrave Macmillan.
More, M. P. (2014). The intellectual foundations of the Black Consciousness Movement. In P. Vale, L. Hamilton, & E. Prinsloo (Eds.), Intellectual traditions in South Africa: Ideas, individuals and institutions (pp. 173–196). UKZN Press.
Mudimbe, V. Y. (1988). The invention of Africa: Gnosis, philosophy, and the order of knowledge. Indiana University Press.
Ndlovu-Gatsheni, S. J. (2013). Empire, global coloniality and African subjectivity. Berghahn Books.
Ndlovu-Gatsheni, S. J. (2018). Epistemic freedom in Africa: Deprovincialization and decolonization. Routledge.
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o. (1986). Decolonising the mind: The politics of language in African literature. J. Currey.
Nicholas, L. J. (Ed.). (1991). Psychology and oppression: Critiques and protocols. Skotaville.
Nicholas, L. J., & Cooper, S. (Eds.). (1990). Psychology and apartheid. Vision.
Oliphant, A. (2008). A human face: Biko’s conceptions of African culture and humanism. In A. Mngxitama, A. Alexander, & N. C. Gibson (Eds.), Biko lives (pp. 213–232). Palgrave Macmillan.
Rodney, W. (1972). How Europe underdeveloped Africa. Howard University Press.
Seedat, M. (1993). Topics, trends and silences in South African psychology 1948-1988: Ethnocentrism, crisis and liberatory echoes. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa.
Seedat, M. (1998). A characterization of South African psychology (1948-1988): The impact of exclusionary ideology. South African Journal of Psychology, 28(2), 74–84.
Seedat, M., & Lazarus, S. (2014). Community psychology in South Africa: Origins, developments, and manifestations. South African Journal of Psychology, 44(3), 267–281.
Seedat, M., & Mackenzie, S. (2008). The triangulated development of South African psychology: Race, scientific racism and professionalisation. In C. van Ommen & D. Painter (Eds.), Interiors: A history of psychology in South Africa (pp. 63–69). University of South Africa Press.
Seedat, M., & Suffla, S. (2017). Community psychology and its (dis)contents, archival legacies and decolonisation. Special Issue: Liberatory and critical voices in decolonizing community psychology. South African Journal of Psychology, 47(4), 421–431.
Senghor, L. S. (1994). Negritude: A humanism of the twentieth century. In L. Chrisman & P. Williams (Eds.), Colonial discourse and post-colonial theory (pp. 27–33). Columbia University Press.
Shariati, A. (1974). Awaiting the saviour. Free Islamic Literatures.
Tuğçe, K., Gómez, L., Molina, L. E., Dobles, I., & Adams, G. (2015). Decolonizing psychological science: Special Thematic Section on Decolonizing Psychological Science. Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 3, 213–413.
Vale, P., Hamilton, L., & Prinsloo, E. (Eds.). (2014). Intellectual traditions in South Africa: Ideas, individuals and institutions. UKZN Press.
van Ommen, C., & Painter, D. (Eds.). (2008). Interiors: A history of psychology in South Africa. University of South Africa Press.
Veriava, A., & Naidoo, P. (2008). Remembering Biko for the here and now. In A. Mngxitama, A. Alexander, & N. C. Gibson (Eds.), Biko lives (pp. 233–251). Palgrave Macmillan.
Wilderson, F. B. (2008). Biko and the problematic of presence. In A. Mngxitama, A. Alexander, & N. C. Gibson (Eds.), Biko lives (pp. 95–114). Palgrave Macmillan.
Yen, J. (2007). A history of “community” and community psychology in South Africa. In N. Duncan, B. Bowman, A. Naidoo, J. Pillay, & V. Ross (Eds.), Community psychology: Analysis, context and action (pp. 51–66). UCT Press.
Yen, J. (2008). A history of community psychology in South Africa. In C. van Ommen & D. Painter (Eds.), Interiors: A history of psychology in South Africa (pp. 385–412). University of South Africa Press.
Zeleza, P. T. (2007). The pasts and futures of African history: A generational inventory. African Historical Review, 39, 11–24.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Suffla, S., Seedat, M. (2021). Africa’s Knowledge Archives, Black Consciousness and Reimagining Community Psychology. In: Stevens, G., Sonn, C.C. (eds) Decoloniality and Epistemic Justice in Contemporary Community Psychology. Community Psychology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72220-3_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72220-3_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-72219-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-72220-3
eBook Packages: Behavioral Science and PsychologyBehavioral Science and Psychology (R0)