Attuning Liberation Psychology to Decolonial Refusal

Refusal represents a generative mode of negation, one that not only resists but also opens up possibilities for alternative ways of thinking, being and doing. Liberation psychology suggests a paradigm from which to practice refusal. At the disciplinary level, liberation psychology refuses the pathologising and Eurocentric impulses that characterise much mainstream psychology. Liberation psychology has also been taken up to refuse social oppression, reflected in several generatively negative terms associated with liberation psychology, including problematisation, de-alienation, de-ideologisation, and de-naturalisation. Reflecting on our community-engaged work in South Africa, we consider in this article what liberation psychology might mean for a praxis of decolonial refusal. In particular, we reflect on the ways by which our community partners have, at different moments and for different purposes, refused (a) totalising and individualised notions of psychological repair, and (b) spatial configurations that did not reflect community voice and sovereignty. We argue that it is in these refusals that liberation psychology has the potential to become a radically agonistic mode of praxis, one that is constituted through the psychosocial struggles and voices of marginalised communities. Attuning liberation psychology to refusal, we conclude, can deepen how liberation psychology practitioners commit to the decolonial project.