Critical Psychology Research Articles

Dasein and World: Heidegger’s Reconceiving of the Transcendental After Husserl

Abstract The following examines Heidegger’s analysis of world and Dasein from a transcendental perspective. It is argued that Heidegger’s reflections on the interconnected themes of world and Dasein reveal the tensions that exist between the transcendental claims before and after Being and Time and the analysis of worldliness. It begins by looking at Heidegger’s early analysis of Husserl’s critique of psychologism and naturalism, assessing what this tells us about Heidegger’s analysis of world and nature. It subsequently addresses Heidegger’s transformation of Husserlian phenomenology, and intentionality in particular, arguing against interpreters who claim Heidegger’s interconnected concepts of Dasein and world are reducible to one another and hence phenomenologically problematic. In order to respond to this reading, the article examines the twin themes of, on the one hand, transcendental constitutive analysis in Heidegger’s work, Dasein as disclosive and ‘world entering’, and, on the other hand, the centrality of the world and the realm of nature as always more than Dasein’s constitutive relationship to it. In order to understand what Heidegger means by worldliness, the article will look at Heidegger’s reflections on nature as the world’s other, which nonetheless needs to be understood on the basis of worldliness.

Φεμινισμός και ψυχολογία: Συνέπειες στην έρευνα, στην κλινική πρακτική και στη συλλογική κοινωνική δράση

The papers of this special issue fall into the general area of the feminist critical psychology, since they reveal the special and often marginalized experience of different groups of women, place and interpret the issues discussed within the context of the existing social-cultural ideology regarding to gender and/or ethnic identity and connect the scientific research with practice, the empowerment of the participants and the social-political action. This commentary underlies three important issues that have been brought into the front by this feminist critique on psychology and which are also discussed among all the papers. These are (a) the adaptation of qualitative methodology in psychological research, (b) the recognition of the interaction between the identity of gender and other identities, as well as (c) the notions of social justice and social action

Education, Action

In this review, I assess Erica Burman's (2018) book, Fanon, Education, Action: Child as Method, an important and timely contribution to critical developmental psychology, which reads and critiques the work of Frantz Fanon.

Self‐structure Singularity: Considerations for Agential Realism in Critical Psychology

AbstractIn this paper I encourage consideration of a self‐structure singularity such that structural forces like racism or capitalism do not bear influence on individual actors in a given social field. Instead, individuals enact those forces through carrying out even the smallest of everyday occurrences. Structural forces emergent as individual actions and lived experiences can be understood through the lens of Karen Barad's agential realism as a materially discursive apparatus in lieu of being conceptualized as separate, mutually exclusive indices of social behavior worthy of theoretical consideration in their own right. Further, I propose autoethnography as a method by which critical psychologists can initially engage with the mutual instantiation of structures and lives. I encourage self‐structure examination through critical autoethnographic practices as an initial way to recognize self‐structure singularity in one's own life so as to facilitate a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the societal groups or individuals a critical psychologist desires to study.

Under lying conditions of gender‐based violence—Decolonial feminism meets epistemic ignorance: Critical transnational conversations

AbstractThis article engages a doubled conversation, between South Africa and the United States, about gender‐based violence and the curious epistemic silence, even in critical psychology, about gendered and racialized violence as a deep sedimentary, transnational and transhistoric, layer of (in)human(e) existence. In this article, we lift up the long history of underlying conditions of state‐sponsored and socially enacted violence, and we also problematize how social science scholarship has been designed, underlying conditions, such that anti‐Black violence and gender‐based violence are routinely (mis)represented as if idiosyncratic ruptures—microaggressions or battered women—in an otherwise smooth social fabric. Through the lens of decolonial feminism, we examine how the COVID‐19 crisis makes public the gendering of violence, especially against Black women, as if it were a spike, obscuring how pervasive and enduring it is—a constant moan in South Africa, India, the United States, among native women in Canada, and other places around the globe. We end by calling for critical scholarship that peels back the symptom of gender‐based violence, recognizes the history and ongoing structural enactment of racialized and gendered violence, and excavates the bold and relentless heartbeat of resistance narrated in quiet and loud demands for dignity, liberation, and desire.

Phenomenology and Psychoanalytic Theory. Husserl’s Critique of Psychologism as Common Ground

Phenomenology and Psychoanalytic Theory. Husserl’s Critique of Psychologism as Common Ground

Contribution of Transcendental Phenomenology to a Person- and Social Justice-Centered Framework in Critical Theoretical Psychology: Understanding Experience of Suffering in Traumatic Loss and Pandemic Crisis Conditions

Contribution of Transcendental Phenomenology to a Person- and Social Justice-Centered Framework in Critical Theoretical Psychology: Understanding Experience of Suffering in Traumatic Loss and Pandemic Crisis Conditions

The Connector's Paradox: Revisiting the Social Psychological Value of Connecting in Social Networks

For years, many network theorists have argued that connecting (previously unacquainted) people in one’s social network comes at a structural disadvantage to ego: connecting closes holes in the social structure, which may lead to the emergence of dense and cohesive/homogenous networks around ego, often associated with increased informational redundancy, reduced access to novel information, and a loss of control benefits. Instead of connecting, network theorists and business strategists often advise to network, which I define here as the building and developing of new ties by ego. Networking not only expands ego’s network; it may also diversify it if the new contact is non-redundant. Unlike connecting, which closes structural holes around ego, networking can lead to the creation of new structural holes, resulting in immediate brokerage benefits. Here, I advance a social psychological critique of this structural de-emphasis of connecting in network theory, by suggesting that the structural payoff difference which networking might provide (compared to connecting) is offset by the social psychological rewards which connecting might provide (compared to networking): unlike networking, perceived by many as instrumentally motivated and strategic behavior which is solely carried out for personal gain and professional advancement, connecting might be seen as more authentic, cooperative, and communal behavior – a signal of generosity and altruism – resulting in the rewarding of higher social status. I propose that the social psychological rewards of connecting are causally linked to downstream structural benefits: connectors, due to being seen in a more positive light, will experience higher levels of direct, as well as indirect reciprocation by alters and social observers. My main thesis, called “The Connector’s Paradox”, states that there is a hidden structural value in connecting/closing social structures: the withholding of immediate structural rewards by the connector comes to be associated with social psychological rewards which in turn might mediate the mid-to long-term structural payoffs which connectors will accrue. Paradoxically, the closing of local social structures might – over time – lead to their very opening: connecting triggers more future network exchanges than networking, resulting in the potential expansion, and diversification of connectors’ social networks, ceteris paribus. As such, the Connector’s Paradox might not only be a social mechanism through which cooperation in networks (i.e., connecting) becomes sustainable, and, ultimately, rational; it might also be key to understanding how social psychological and structural processes in networks dynamically interrelate.

Collaborating alone? Teachers’ and pedagogues’ unequal cross-professional collaboration and what it means for their professional learning in Danish schools

Cross-professional collaboration in schools is a prerequisite for professional teaching practice and thus for professional development in many post-industrialized societies, yet little is known about how teachers with different professional backgrounds make meaning of and internalize cross-professional collaboration and how inequities in legitimacy and power in cross-professional collaboration affect professional learning. This article examines cross-professional collaboration and the professional learning it initiates between teachers and pedagogues (Danish term for childcare professionals) in Danish schools. Drawing on situated learning theory, critical psychology and Pierre Bourdieu, it explores teachers’ and pedagogues’ professional learning in conflictual cross-professional collaborations. The findings of the study document that cross-professional collaborations are spaces for negotiating and drawing professional boundaries and for producing hierarchies of different forms of professional capital, thereby re/producing dominant understandings of what constitutes teaching professionalism for teachers and pedagogues. The article concludes that cross-professional collaboratory practices may position and draw boundaries between the different professional groups, thus limiting productive learning.

Pandemias, profecias e autonomias

Este relato, através da antropologia engajada e psicologia crítica, articula narrativas Guarani e Kaiowá com a pandemia do novo coronavírus, com intuito de evidenciar as ações autônomas da população indígena de contenção do COVID-19 em seus territórios. Por outro lado, os primeiros casos de infecção entre os Guarani e Kaiowá no Mato Grosso do Sul surgem a partir de grandes empresas do agronegócio, justamente o setor responsável por parte considerável da destruição de habitats que criam fricções entre seres humanos e não-humanos, gerando situações proto-pandêmicas. Neste sentido, buscamos demonstrar a permanência da colonialidade através da contradição entre o modo de vida não-indígena e a sensibilidade de mundo dos Guarani e Kaiowá com objetivo de descolonizar os discursos sobre saúde e doença, destacando a agência política dos povos indígenas para enfrentar a pandemia.

"Mesih Annelik": Sosyal Medyada İnşa Edilen Annelik Kimliğinin Söylem Analizi

Eleştirel Söylemsel Analiz yönteminin kullanıldığı bu çalışma, Türkiye’de sosyal medya bağlamında annelik kimliğinin kadınlar tarafından inşasını, söylemsel kaynaklar olan açıklayıcı repertuarlar ve özne konumları ile ele almayı amaçlamıştır. Bunun için ilk olarak Facebook ve Instagram kanallarında yer alan fenomen anne profilleri ve annelik gruplarında paylaşılan gönderiler ve bu gönderilere gelen takipçi yorumları incelenmiştir. İkinci olarak birbirinden farklı özelliklere sahip 5 anne ile yarı yapılandırılmış mülakat yapılmıştır. Sosyal medya incelemesi sonucunda “bireysel annelik”, “kadın-erkek eşitsizliği üzerinden annelik”, “yeterince fedakârlık” ve “yetersizlik” olmak üzere 4 açıklayıcı repertuar elde edilmiştir. Özne konumları olarak da fenomen anneler için “duyurucu, öğretici, aydınlatıcı, yol gösterici, nasihat edici ve rol model olarak alınabilecek kişi” konumları tespit edilmiştir. Fenomen annelerin takipçileri için ise “fenomen annenin öğreticiliği, yol göstericiliği ve rol modelliğini kabul edenler ve kabul etmeyenler” şeklinde özne konumları tespit edilmiştir. Mülakat yapılan katılımcı annelerin konuşmalarında ise “öngörülemeyen annelik”, “denge kurma olarak annelik” ve “bireysel değişim olarak annelik” olmak üzere 3 açıklayıcı repertuar tespit edilmiştir. Belirlenen özne konumları ise “zahmet çeken kişi” konumu ve “olması gerekeni olan kişi” konumu şeklindedir. Görüşmelerde tespit edilen annelik kimliğinin inşasında kullanılan açıklayıcı repertuarların, sosyal medya bağlamında kullanılan açıklayıcı repertuarlarla benzeştiği ve farklılaştığı noktaların olduğu görülmüştür. Her iki bağlamda kullanılan özne konumlarının ise farklılaşmadığı belirlenmiştir. Sonuçlar, Türkiye'de feminizm, annelik üzerine yapılan önceki çalışmalar ve sosyal medyada benlik sunumu bağlamında tartışılmıştır.

Erich Fromm and the Critical Theory of Communication

Erich Fromm (1900–1980) was a Marxist psychoanalyst, philosopher, and socialist humanist. This article asks: How can Fromm’s critical theory of communication be used and updated to provide a critical perspective in the age of digital and communicative capitalism? In order to provide an answer, this article discusses elements from Fromm’s work that allow us to better understand the human communication process. The focus is on communication (the second section), ideology (the third section), and technology (the fourth section). Fromm’s approach can inform a critical theory of communication in multiple respects: His notion of the social character allows to underpin such a theory with foundations from critical psychology. Fromm’s distinction between the authoritarian and the humanistic character can be used for discerning among authoritarian and humanistic communication. Fromm’s work can also inform ideology critique: the ideology of having shapes life, thought, language, and social action in capitalism. In capitalism, technology (including computing) is fetishized and the logic of quantification shapes social relations. Fromm’s quest for humanist technology and participatory computing can inform contemporary debates about digital capitalism and its alternatives.

Older Adults’ Conduct of Everyday Life After Bereavement by Suicide: A Qualitative Study

BackgroundThe loss of a loved one to suicide can be a devastating experience that can have negative long-term effects on the social life and physical and mental health of the bereaved person. Worldwide, an estimated 237 million older adults have experienced suicide bereavement. As assumed in critical psychology, “the conduct of everyday life” reflects the social self-understanding by which people actively organize their lives based on their personal concerns, negotiation with co-participants in various action contexts, and their life interests. Bereaved people may change their social self-understanding as they adjust to their new roles and relationships in everyday life. The aim of this study was to investigate how older adults bereaved by suicide conducted their everyday life during the first 5 years after the loss of a loved one.MethodsThis was a semi-structured qualitative interview study carried out by a research team consisting of co-researchers (older adults aged ≥60 years and bereaved by suicide), professionals, and researchers. The team conducted 15 semi-structured interviews with 20 older adults bereaved by suicide. The interviews were audio-recorded and verbatim transcribed. The participants’ mean age was 67.6 (range 61–79) years at the time of the loss. Data were thematically analyzed through a “conduct of everyday life” theoretical perspective.ResultsWe constructed a central theme, “the broken notion of late-life living” in that late-life would no longer be as the participants had imagined. They struggled with their understanding of themselves and other people in social communities when they pursued their concerns adjusting to their broken notions of late-life living. We construed three primary concerns: (1) seeking meaning in the suicide, (2) keeping the memory of the deceased alive, and (3) regaining life despite the loss.ConclusionThe participants’ bereavement process was influenced by their stage in life. They perceived themselves as having reduced possibilities to restore their life project and limited time to re-orient their life. Age-related factors influenced their possibilities to pursue their concerns in order to adjust to their new life conditions.

Hebcrit: a new dimension of critical race theory

ABSTRACT I believe that it is essential to identify a new facet of Critical Race Theory that specifically addresses the needs of the Jewish people. Often overlooked and ignored in multicultural, diversity, and ethnic studies, Jews continue to face specific concerns and obstacles in the both the United States and around the world. In this article, I outline the foundational structure of this new critical theory that investigates issues affecting Jewish people in American society. HebCrit (pronounced ‘heeb’) is rooted in Critical Race Theory, History, Social Psychology, Education, and Jewish Studies. This new theoretical framework provides a way to address the complicated positionality that many American Jews navigate on a daily basis.

For a knowledge with the other in psychological science

In our comment on Held (2020) we attempt to deepen her criticism and reflection about epistemic violence while addressing the need for its elimination in psychological science. We acknowledge her argument about the prepositional divisions that emerge between two large groups of psychologies or psychologists (mainstream psychology vs. Indigenous and critical psychologies): from above and from below. In relation to these prepositional problems, we agree that the explanations derived from these divisions in terms of of, for, and about are confusing. However, we consider that Held’s reflections concerning the set of prepositions in the production of knowledge based on “of, from, and for the other” neglect another alternative that is “with the other.” According to this last point, we briefly present Bakhtin’s theoretical notion of co-authorship to argue that generally, epistemic violence is committed by not recognizing the voices of the participants involved. In addition, we use examples of our work with Indigenous communities in Brazil to show that generating knowledge together and with Indigenous peoples is a valid and necessary way to eliminate epistemic violence.

Who is the “other”? Epistemic violence and discursive practices

My commentary on Held (2020) aims at offering a broader perspective about epistemic violence in psychology while critically examining her positions concerning objectivity and essentialism. Following Michel Foucault, who developed the idea of episteme, that is, the codification and structure that determines the knowledge formation of a given epoch, I suggest that psychology can be regarded as an ideological sociocultural formation and as a discursive practice. In line with these premises, Held’s article can be regarded as a “text,” which, in reproducing the divides between objective versus subjective, folk versus scientific conceptions, relativism versus realism, and so forth, is functional to the maintenance of hegemony. I will focus on the argumentative and discursive strategies that Held adopts in her defense of an objectivist ontology and epistemology against Indigenous and critical psychology.

Some clarifications on critical and Indigenous psychologies

This comment responds to Held’s (2020) analyses of Indigenous and critical psychologies, not by providing line-for-line refutations of arguments, but by laying out some of the larger issues in those areas of research and practice. The argument clarifies assumptions and misunderstandings by looking at the relationship between critical and Indigenous psychologies, power and violence, objectivity, and the regulative role of prepositions. It is hoped that a clearer and broader understanding of those psychologies can emerge.

Distributing resources in a construction project: Conflictual co-operation about a common cause and its theoretical implications

An investigation of a design project is presented with concepts and theory developed within critical psychology in order to understand the process. Investigating the co-operation of the design of a building allows us to see that the building, its design, and its use constitute common contradictory causes. In their co-ordinated activities, professionals participate from each of their perspectives with different functions and priorities, and in their acts they must take the contradictions into account. Contradictions as incompatible aspects in things and activities make it difficult to keep the common cause stable. This means that the participants’ co-operation is a continuous attempt to produce stability. They are constantly confronted with the possibility of reorganization, development, and conflict in their activities. Therefore, co-operation is conflictual. The theoretical position is based on the fact that our understanding is reciprocally formed with our local, common activities. The theoretical consequences of the position are explored.

Generalizations, concepts, and pseudoconcepts: The subjective content of epistemic violence

Barbara Held’s article (2020) challenges the “for/about prepositional divide” (p. 349), which is presumed by critical and Indigenous psychologies, at two empirical and epistemological levels. I argue that Held’s critique can be further strengthened empirically, with reference to Lev Vygotsky’s analysis of the relation between spontaneous and scientific concepts, and epistemologically, with reference to Evald Ilyenkov’s treatment of concepts in contrast to mere notions.

A psychology from among, ahead

Held (2020a) does critical psychologists a service in exposing a problematic relativism underlying Teo’s proposal for a less epistemically violent psychology, one sustained by a set of false dualisms and a priori commitments. This commentary can be understood as a logical progression within the author’s larger intellectual journey, reflecting longstanding concerns about threats to objective truth. One take-home lesson is the perils of taking language too literally as a constitutive matrix in deploying counter concepts, as opposed to the empirical realities of how those concepts function (and get wielded) in the world. Importantly, this includes debates over who counts as “oppressed” and who gets to claim this status. As one alternative to Teo’s unsustainable dichotomies, I offer a metaphorical “psychology from ahead” whose concepts and interpretive findings anticipate unfamiliar experiences and challenges evolving in real time, and where emergency and crisis serve as the lens for combating injustices, epistemic and otherwise.