Toward a Decolonizing Indigenous Psychology in the Philippines: Introducing Sikolohiyang Pilipino

Abstract

An indigenous decolonizing style of doing psychology has recently emerged in the Philippines. This essay examines the nature, genealogy, and limitation of this unprecedented intellectual and social movement among Filipino intellectuals called, in the national language, “sikolohiyang Pilipino.” Translated into “Filipino psychology,” this trend seeks to invent a discipline of psychological research and analysis of everyday life and personality of the individual Filipino. Its concepts and terminology are to be derived from indigenous customs and practices from various groups and communities throughout the islands. The synthesis will be the foundation for an evolving nationally rooted world‐view. This movement may be seen as part of a worldwide indigenization movement that began in the sixties and proceeded in the next four decades as a response to capitalist globalization in general, and to the crisis of the local neocolonial formation in particular. While it has achieved a measure of academic legitimacy in the Philippines—an offshoot is a new trend called “Sikolohiyang Panlipunan‐at‐Kalinangan” (“Social and Cultural Psychology”)—it still has to achieve international recognition. Meanwhile, events in the Philippines are determining new directions for both these trends in the light of the US hegemonic “war on terror,” pushing psychological theory to reckon with its crucible in the revolutionary practice of the masses fighting national oppression and imperialist incursions.