Towards a decolonization of Latin American psychology: postcolonial condition, decolonial turn and anti-colonial struggle

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to review, analyze and discuss some of the options offered to those who orient their work towards the decolonization of Latin American psychology. This emerging orientation is currently dominated by decolonial thinking. However, while decoloniality allows questioning and perhaps reversing colonial operations within and outside the psychological sphere, it has not yet led to a reflective return of the decolonial on itself to examine its own limits and blind spots. In the field of psychology, such reflection should consider issues such as those discussed here, among them the irredeemably European character of the psychological conception of the subject, the hybridism of current subjectivities and their split due to contradiction and mutual exclusion between coexisting cultural traditions in the subjective sphere. It will be shown how certain consequences and forms of persistence of colonialism justify the decolonization of psychology, but can also hinder, complicate and even compromise it. This makes it necessary for psychologists to seriously consider the relationship of the decolonial turn to the postcolonial condition and to the anti-colonial struggle.