Engaging with the Apartheid Archive Project: Voices from the South African Diaspora in Australia

Abstract

The psychology of oppression and liberation is concerned with the dynamics of oppression and examining and transforming ideological notions such as race, class, gender and culture in processes of identity and community-making in colonial and post-colonial contexts (Burton & Kagan, 2005; Fanon, 1967; Grosfoguel & Georas, 2000; Moane, 2003; Montero, 2007; Okazaki, David & Abelmann, 2008). The conception of power as produced in relations between people within broader social, cultural, historical and political contexts is key to studies of oppression and colonialism. In this view, power is not a possession or fixed with an individual. Instead, it is embedded within ideology, which comprises ‘stories, narratives, discourses, as well as practices which construct subject positions for both rulers and ruled’ (Foster, 2004, p. 565). Identities are seen as socially constructed — they are produced in social, cultural, material and historical contexts, and people are differently positioned in systems because of relations of power and privilege (Hall, 2000; Hook, 2005).KeywordsSocial IdentityCommunity PsychologyWhite PeopleCritical Race TheoryHistorical MemoryThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.