Critical psychology: Chapter Twenty-Two Flashcards
Liberation psychology
Define Liberation Psychology
involves questions of the psychological processes, dynamics, capacities and practices through which people maya chieve emancipation, freedom, liberation and escape from particular power structures of oppression and exploitation
What are the central arguments of liberation psychology (3)
- there are different sires and forms of oppression (race, class and sex/gender) this oppression should be seen as intertwined.
- there are links between large-scale social processes such as social structures, institutions and ideologies and personal subjectivities. these are complex and at times contradictory.
- there are always possibilities of revolt, resistance, challenge or subversion of the prevailing social order, but that such resistance is uneven, possibly painfully slow.
Define social structures
the underlying structures or organisation of society, the underlying social, economic and political relations that pattern society.
What are the three cardinal areas of concern?
- the nature of social formations
- questions of power
- issues of psychological subjectivity
Define hegemonic orders
various social structures by virtue of which various kinds of division and hierarchy become taken for granted, assumed unproblematic and accorded some degree of legitimacy.
What are the two classes of polarise?
- the bourgeoisie
- the proletariat
Define polarise
to cause to concentrate about two strongly conflicting or opposed positions
Define class struggle
struggle between exploited and exploiters, which may take many forms - economic, political, ideological, theoretical, although each of these subordinate to the political struggle.
Moane proposed a list of six processes involved in the establishment and maintenance of domination. List them.
- violence, involving mechanisms such as military force, invasion, conquest and occupation of territory as well as rape, sexual assault, domestic violence and sexual harassement.
- political exclusion from voting, government office, representation and subtle alienation of women from political terrain.
- economic exploitation involving a host of issues including income, wealth, poverty, tax systems, restrictions on trade, economic ownership, surplus value as well as exclusion from employment and unpaid household labour by women.
- sexual exploitation including prostitution, rape, sexual slavery, control of women’s sexuality and range of reproductive issues.
- control of culture including restriction of expression of indigenous languages, history, art-forms, the loss of language and lack of voice on the part of women and minorities.
- fragmentation, including use of divisions to prevent united opposition, manufactured of competition and distrust among oppressed and for women fragmentation due to dependency on men, labour market insecurity ad victim blaming.
Ideologies assist in maintaining relations of domination through discourses which say what?
a) what is the case = creating a sense of inevitability
b) what is good/bad = creating a sense of deference that is, submission or yielding to the wishes, opinions or judgement of another.
c)what is possible/impossible = creating a sense of resignation, that is, pessimistic view which fails to see possibility of alternatives.
Define ideology
ways in which meaning serves to create and sustain power relations of dominations. they are stories, narratives, discourses as well as practices that construct subjective positions for both rulers and ruled.
Define subject
notion insisting that people cannot be abstract out of their sociopolitical and/or historical contexts, that persons always exist in relation to the structures or values of power.
Define interpellation
ideological process in which a person is hailed or called in recognising this call and in responding to it, that person is positioned as a subject.
for example: a wolf-whistle, which is a practice and action meaning and a hailing, places women in subjugated and objectified.
Define Dialectics
originally, the notion of dialectics refers to debate or more particularly the art of knowing the truth through overcoming contradictions in an argument
Define subjectification
qualifying or positioning of persons as subjects where they have a speaking voice, an active social role to play, but within the overarching structures or concerns of a particular form of power
Define pastoral
of or relating to a pastor, to a moral or spiritual guide or a form of guidance
These new knowledge forms operate power through disciplinary means, which involve what?
- setting of norms
-standards
-discourses - guidelines
- warnings
-techniques of surveillance
What are the two forms of manufacturing subjectivities?
- one is where we are subject to someone else’s control, shaping and dependence
- the second, is the Foucauldian view in which power is more pervasive, subtle, enmeshing, is impossible to break free of, but which may be transformed in terms of new power/knowledge and new relations of subjectivities.
The individual is the container of a range of dispositions and unique attributes which are held within and this self-contained individual is the product of dynamics both inside and outside. Define this.
- Inside: in the form of biological inheritance and unique dispositions (personalities, traits, tendencies)
- Outside: in the form of the environment, culture and mechanisms of reward and punishment -the old “nature-nurture debate”
What is the relationship between individual and society? two contrary views.
- one takes the individual as passive, that is the outcome, or the victim of forces labelled as socialisation, conformity, obedience, rule-following
- the second, as in humanistic views, takes the individual as the active source of action, a creature who has individual needs, tastes, wishes and who can make choices and decisions impelled by inner states.
What is individual-social dualism?
this view sees both individual and society as separate entities, in a rather antagonistic relationship, opposed to each other.
If individual-social dualism is correct, then the task of liberation psychology would be what?
a) throw off the shackles of society
b) extend the choices and liberties of individuals
c) increase the search for our “authentic” inner selves
For emancipation to be possible people need what?
- alternatives
- other social values
- new ideals images of a better social order
Define servitude
lack of freedom, state of subjection
Define immanent critique
Marxist, critical focus on possible, feasible, better futures based on current conditions of possibility and which includes the specification of the agents of transfiguration
What are the two tales of modernity?
- one which sees enlightment, discovery, science, technology, the amelioration of human suffering and above all progress and hope.
- the other is much darker take of the rise of racism, colonialism, western imperialism, new forms of economic exploitation in capitalism, the continued subjugation of women and a substantial increase in large-scale wars and genocide, while torture continues unabated in many countries.
