Epistemological and Cultural Perspectives in African Psychology

Abstract

This chapter highlights the philosophical, epistemological, and cultural perspectives in African psychology. The principal goal of the chapter is to illustrate some of the efforts that scholars of continental African psychology are making to unbind themselves from the restrictive ways of doing psychology propagated by mainstream Western psychology. The chapter presents continental African psychology as a legitimate and autonomous postcolonial field of psychology endowed with its own critical orientation to psychological scholarship. The key themes discussed include the epistemological stances of African psychology, the methodological philosophy of constructive alternativism that advances the processes of research and scholarship in African psychology, the notion of African psychology as a human science, the idea of human beings as cultural-historical beings, and the notion of the modern African child as a child of the “middle ground.” The chapter shows that African psychology favors an open philosophy approach to the study of psychology.