Psychology, the psychological, and critical praxis: A phenomenologist reads Frantz Fanon

Abstract

This article situates the role of psychological investigations in analyses of social problems like colonialism and racism, via a phenomenological reading of the writings of Frantz Fanon. Emerging scholarship on Fanon’s use of psychology is beginning to elucidate how his style of analysis enables an interweaving of psychological insights with sociopolitical ones. The present paper builds on this research by explicating the essential moments of Fanon’s approach. Fanonian investigations are shown to be characterized by a focus on: experience, concrete examples, evidence, meaning, unprejudiced seeing from multiple perspectives, delineation of essential structure, and critical and liberating praxis. Fanon is then compared to other theorists operating at the nexus of psychology and society in order to delineate an overall structure of psychopolitical investigations. Overall, the paper attempts to sketch ways in which psychology can be advanced as a science and praxis of human liberation.