Cleaning up our white backyard:
decolonising Australian psychology.

Abstract:
Histories of Psychology traditionally link the discipline's scientific
credentials to its Greco-Roman, Judaeo-Christian, western secular
rationalist heritages. The grand narrative of the discipline's celebrated
late nineteenth century infancy was interwoven with the triumphal march of
industrialisation and colonisation. Psychology in Australia continues to
be characterised by such discourses - it is difficult to identify a
distinctive Australian psychology that reflects either the multicultural
nature of post World War 2 Australian society or the ancient and living
culture of its Indigenous people. This paper examines the role of
community psychologists both as critical gadflies from the margins and as
drivers of APS social policy development in the mainstream. At the start
of the 21st Century, new paradigms are opening up spaces for minority
voices to claim legitimacy in an old/young discipline in an old/young land
that still looks super-white.

www.compsy.org.uk