Relevance in SA psychology

Question 1

SA in the mid-1970s

Answer 1

• regionally: civil war (rhodesia, mozam, angola)
• 1974: First Professional Board for Psychology established
• 1976: TV introduces to SA, riots in Soweto and CT
• 1978: joint psychology conferences of SAPA and PIRSA

-mounting local and international censure of apartheid rule

Question 2

South Africa in the 1980s

Answer 2

• Anti-apartheid protest:
  the formation of the racially integrated PASA, the formation of OASSSA, the formation of Psychology and Apartheid Committee
• a ‘relevance’ debate in psychology:
  Euro-American bias of the discipline, the marginalised experiences of the black majority, indifference to human rights abuses of the state

Question 3

The ‘relevance’ debate in post-apartheid South Africa

Answer 3

• a white, middle-class, European/American, ethnocentric and coloniser worldview
• Silences around apartheid practices, race, class, gender etc. “and how these relate to issues like poverty, power, inequality and exploitation”

Question 4

The current ‘relevance’ debate

Answer 4

1. Theoretical issues: Euro-American bias
2. Professional issues: race, language
3. training issues: selection criteria and their operationalisation, selection panels
4. research issues: sidelining of socio-eco issues, 2% of articles look at HIV/AIDS, 2% look at race

Question 5

Why the apparent lack of progress?

Answer 5

Racist professionals

Cultural explanations

Institutional practices etc.

Question 6

‘Relevance’ discourse in international psychology

Answer 6

1960s and 1970s:

• year of international protest
• vietnam war
• White racism
• Oppressive government
• Homophobia
• Nuclear proliferation
• Environmental degradation
• Gender oppression

Question 7

American psychology in crisis

Answer 7

• the artifact crisis
• the ethics crisis
• the relevance crisis

Question 8

European psychology in crisis

Answer 8

• student revolution
• American social psychology as ideological
• European social psychology as atheoretical

Question 9

‘Third World’ psychology in crisis

Answer 9

Euro-American psychology is invalid

No credible alternative

The internationalization of relevance

Question 10

Why won’t ‘relevance’ go away?

Answer 10

• failure to define psychology’s subject matter
• indecision about psychology’s cognitive interest
• The inevitable result of a disciplinary culture of scientism
• A consequent difficulty theorizing rapid social change
• Different conceptions of ‘relevance’

Question 11

Defining ‘relevance’

Answer 11

social relevance: the discipline must contribute to human welfare

cultural relevance: afrocentrism and accessibility

market relevance:
the international benchmarking of disciplinary outputs

Question 12

What is relevance? the trouble with assumptions…

Answer 12

Essentially, ‘relevance’ refers to the benefits psychology is thought to offer society.

Underlying talk of ‘relevance’ is the notion of the ‘public good’

BUT:
What is ‘good’?
Which ‘public’ is being referred to?

Question 13

Why does talk of ‘relevance’ matter?

Answer 13

• Because language ‘does’ things
• Ways of speaking about ‘relevance’ explain the past lack of progress in the discipline and can ‘predict’ the future of the discipline
• How is the profession speaking about ‘relevance’ in the post-apartheid era?
• One way to investigate this would be to analyse addresses delivered at national psychology congresses.

Question 14

Theo Veldsman (1996)

Answer 14

Market rationality:
“healthy growth”
“financial viability”
“key stakeholders”
“financial scenarios”
“vertical” and “horizontal” relationships
“service delivery”
“value adding working relationships”
“improvement in tariffs” “our clients” and “ourselves as service providers” (p. 6)
A need to find “the appropriate balance [between] looking after our own interests and satisfying the needs of those we have to serve”

Question 15

Smangaliso Mkhatshwa (2000)

Answer 15

• a mix of social and market consciousness
  “Psychology has a vital role to play in assisting government to understand the forces at play in our national psyche or, as the case may be, individual and group psyches” (p. 1)
  Social and mental problems “negatively impact… on our ability as a country to compete in an increasingly globally-competitive environment” (ibid.)
  Six years after our liberation, what are psychologists doing about minds and consciousnesses disfigured by our bloody past? I ask you.” (ibid.)

Question 16

Kader Asmal (2001)

Answer 16

• mix of market and social consciousness
  “I have no doubt that psychology has a vital role to play in the healing of our people and in dealing with the psychological scars wrought by apartheid.”

“developing” countries must be able to compete with “developed” ones

“meeting targets”

Question 17

Saleem Badat (2002)

Answer 17

-Critique of the market / strong social consciousness

“the great danger of a rampant and profane marketisation and commodification of higher education” (p. 10)
This may lead to the humanities and social sciences being “sacrificed at the altar of ‘market relevance’ and ‘market needs’” (p. 6)
We need to ensure that students “are not reduced to ‘clients’ and ‘customers’ but are embraced as real partners in higher learning” (p. 9)
“The evidence seems to suggest that we are not” producing graduates who will “engage with the ideologies of neo-liberalism and privatisation, the privileging of private benefits above public good and the attitude of ‘greed is cool’ and ‘get what you can and screw the rest’” (pp. 12-13)

Question 18

Mathatha Tsedu (2003)

Answer 18

-Strong sense of social / civic responsibility

The rainbow nation metaphor “disempower[s] people from engaging with the challenges of the time” (p. 6)
The national reality is one of greed, “a fiercely violent society” (ibid.), white superiority and black inferiority, and “[m]any people walk[ing] around carrying burdens of time past” (ibid.)

Question 19

Patrick Sibaya (2004)

Answer 19

-A re-emerging market rationality

“By your gracious cooperation, commitment to transformation and support of membership, you have demonstrated to the South African population, and the world at large, that we are a united people”
“international accolades”
“contingents of international attendees” “world-class journal of psychology”
“management teams”
“foster[ing] productivity”
“our core products”
“the quality of services we offer”
“quality assurance”
Because “[p]sychology is a caring profession”, he reasons that “[w]e must care for one another, first…. Charity begins at home. Let us care for our fellow psychologists”

Question 20

Boyce Mkhize (2007)

Answer 20

-Strong commitment to social relevance

“This country has a bag full of apartheid wounds… No active follow-up was ever done to bring about true reconciliation and healing so that there would be closure to some of the gruesome revelations that our nation was exposed to. And so, if you asked me, what is the state of the discipline, I would say, it is a quiet or silent discipline in the face of an evident national cry for oral and emotional catharsis.”

Question 21

Hlengiwe Mkhize (2010)

Answer 21

• ceremonial discourse

“the enormous strides made by psychology in this country” (p. 1)
“the advances made by our rainbow nation” (p. 1)
“Our country, flush from [the FIFA] World Cup, has come together remarkably and there is a new sense of common purpose” (ibid.)
Psychologists “will play a very progressive role… to assist those less fortunate amongst us” (ibid.).
She notes “the steady pace of progress that organised psychology under the leadership of PsySSA has made” (ibid.)

Question 22

Emmanuel Tlou (2011)

Answer 22

• strong social consciousness

Instead of fighting about “the sub-20% of the population who are on medical aid or hospitalised” (p. 2), the focus should be on “the rest of the population we could be serving” (ibid.)
“We have lost sight of the developmental role our profession could play in creating a better society” (ibid.)

Question 23

conclusions

Answer 23

• An evident clash between a market discourse and a discourse of social responsibility:
• -Financial reward, global competitiveness and international recognition VERSUS
• -A traumatised nation and a consequent duty to serve

Will the market “sweep all before it”? (Singh, 2001, p. 20)

With the discipline turning increasingly to ‘science’, we can expect debates about ‘relevance’ to persist.