African Perspectives Flashcards
Give three reasons that motivate for the creation of an African Psychology
- psych used to oppress American black people and support the African colonial project through comparison of “primitive” to “modern”
- to date, psych has had little to do with the poor black populations in Africa
- imported psychologies do not portray African life and mentality - appropriateness and applicability in question
There is a debate around how to create an African psychology. What are the two positions?
- Rejection of Essentialism: Africans do not have a “unique” psyche, rather develop a psychology based on the needs and lives of African people
- Support for an African Psychology: Africans have a distinct psychology, rooted in the belief that there is a unique African reality or way of being
One of the critiques of the African psychology is that is postulates a..
“generic African self”
- is this plausible across the vast diversity of Africa?
African psych is founded on a holistic and….
which means…
anthropocentric ontology
humans form an indivisible whole with the cosmos (God, nature, people etc) and function as centre of the universe from which everything is understood and explained
Within the indivisible cosmic whole of the “African”, there are three cosmic orders/realities that can be distinguished.
What are they?
- the macro-cosmos
- the meso-cosmos
- the micro-cosmos
Outline the macro-cosmos
- the domain in which God is encountered
- (inherent) religious existence of traditional Africans grounded here
- no distinction between the sacred and the worldly in African existance
- religion thus focuses not in the individual, but on the community, is interlinked with its collective functioning
Outline the meso-cosmos
- situated in individual and collective imagination
- no man’s land where spiritual powers hold sway, and living reality and physical reality exist as well
- in this level that behaviour, conflicts and events are explained
- MOST NB level for psych, as African perspective attributes behaviour to external agents in this realm (challenge western idea of freedom/autonomy)
What is one of the results of modernisation and colonialism on the African psyche?
Africans have lost their rootedness in the macro- and meso-cosmic orders that should serve as guidelines for their dialy lives in the micro-cosmic order
Outline the micro-cosmic order
- domain of the individual in their daily COLLECTIVE EXISTENCE (wholly influenced by macro- and meso-cosmos)
Compare the Western and African perspective of an individual’s ethos
Western:
- survival of the fittest
- “control and rule nature”
- competition, uniqueness, autonomy
- e.g., ego, self-concept, SA
African
- survival of the community
- union with nature
- co-op, interdep, agreement, communality
- e.g., us, we people-identity, extended self
- extended self = unbroken circle encompassing infinite past, infinite future and all contemporary African
The personhood or identity is entirely embedded in his or her…..
collective existence
“I am, because we are; and since we are, therefore I am”
How does the African view of self as one of collective existence impact the application of Western psychology?
It confounds the notion of actualisation of the self, or development of the personality as the centre theme/driving force behind human life and study
What are the two functions of Nwoye’s African psych theories?
- protest against western psych and its neglect of the black life
- rehabilitation of the culture and orientation of research in African universities
Nwoye’s African psych wants to be:
- developed from the perspective of Africans and for Africans - relevant to their lives and struggles
Nwoye sees the African psychology as more…
inclusive and extensive than the Westerns notions of self - thus the two schools can exist together and learn from one another
