Hegemonic categorization of the other contributes to epistemological violence

Abstract

Held (2020) missed one central concern of Indigenous psychology (IP), namely that hegemony of knowledge production in mainstream psychology (MP) is to be resisted. In this commentary, I identify two prevalent assumptions in MP that warrant resistance: first, to gain knowledge of the other is to categorize them; second, the use of neutral categories can reduce epistemic violence against the culturally different other. My critique is based on a cultural analysis of strong-ties versus weak-ties rationalities.