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Colonised Minds
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Colonised Minds
Narratives that Shape Psychology

First edition


May 2024 | 232 pages | SAGE Publications Ltd
Psychology, as it is taught in the Global North, strives to be an objective science beyond reproach – but what happens when we examine the discipline critically, through an anti-colonial lens?

This text pulls back the curtain on the existing canon to reveal the historical power structures that shaped the discipline, and examines the extent to which psychology today continues to uphold oppression. Colonised Minds situates current teaching and research of major topics in the field of psychology within the context of colonialism to better understand how some ideas were allowed to flourish while others were suppressed, censored, or left behind. This book will also direct you to critical, antiracist, and feminist approaches for the field and the modern university more generally – looking to voices and perspectives that have been marginalised for ways to rethink the way we see, and teach, psychology.

Akira O’Connor is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology and the Institutional Race Equality Charter Chair at the University of St Andrews.
Erin Robbins is a Lecturer in Psychology and the Director of Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion for the School of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of St Andrews.

 
1. Introduction: The Canon and Systems of Thought
 
2. The Eugenics Problem: The Rotten Ideals Underpinning Today’s Statistical Tests
 
3. The Identification of the ‘Feeble-Minded’: How Psychological Testing and Segregation Go Hand-In-Hand
 
4. Mental Illness and Marginalisation: Psychiatric Diagnosis as an Untrustworthy Lever of Power
 
5. Phrenology, Neuroimaging, and the Technologies That Shape Our Understanding of the Mind
 
6. Hysteria, Happy Pills, and Hormones: Psychology’s Woman Problem
 
7. I Don’t See Colour: Psychology’s Race Problem
 
8. De-WEIRDING Research: A Stepping Stone to a Better Psychology?
 
9. #NotAllUniversities: How Higher Education Perpetuates the Inequities it Claims to Eliminate
 
10. Conclusion

Psychologist new, old, or not a psychologist at all: this book is for you. O’Connor and Robbins honestly critique the narratives which shape psychology and thus influence societal understanding of concepts such as race, gender, sex, intelligence, and psychiatric diagnoses. In the academic field of psychology, we are all often lulled into a false sense of superiority; “we don’t need to read more about this, we know about WEIRD research!” However, the authors address issues which we are often blind to, and indeed, how we individually and collectively can do better to understand and do justice to the very subject we study: people.

Helena Kobayashi-Wood
Student, MA Hons Psychology

An incredibly insightful, eye-opening, and inspiring book, 'Colonised Minds' is an essential read for everyone interested or involved in psychology. This work presents a brilliant examination of the power structures that have shaped the discipline of psychology from a critical, anti-colonial perspective. Compelling and self-aware, O'Connor and Robbins confront the discipline’s own role in maintaining oppression and perpetuating inequity, encouraging the reader to question and reflect on how we view, teach, and relate to psychology today. 'Colonised Minds' speaks to the crucial transformations that the field of psychology urgently needs and offers an empowering re-imagination of psychology as a science that genuinely honours the diversity of human experience.

Ciel
Student, BSc (Hons) Psychology
Key features
Akira has received two teaching excellence awards, and has recently been presenting on this topic to a number of different groups, the All Heads of Psychology Departments Meeting, and the Student Association DiverSTEM Meeting, with another presentation upcoming to the University of Bournemouth psychology department. Whilst he has no media profile at the moment, he is being recognised as someone with expertise in this in the field from the work he has done, and is clearly keen to engage in educating others to empower them on their own journeys. Akira and Erin have also recently won a £10,000 grant from the Association of Heads of Psychology Departments for development of online materials to facilitate discussion around EDI themes, showing that they are up and coming influential academics in this space.

As the book is mapped to the BPS curriculum, it mainly has relevance for the UK, however from the reaction of the US reviewer it will be impactful in universities across the western world who will be looking to do similar work on their own curricula.

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