Colonialism and source of representations about the other peoples for the Europeans. Then it will Postcolonialism: address the psychological characteristics of Psychological Dimensions the colonial situation for both the colonized and the colonizers and their mutual relation- LAURENT LICATA ships, before and after decolonization. Finally, it will situate colonialism as a topic European colonial powers invaded then in current psychological research. dominated a large part of the world from the Renaissance to the middle of the twen- tieth century. Across this long history and COLONIALISM AND numerous geographical settings, colonial- NEOCOLONIALISM ism took various forms, was associated with diverse practices, and was justifi ed by differ- Colonization can be defi ned as “ the takeover ent ideologies. However, it created unprec- of territory, appropriation of material edented situations of encounters between resources, exploitation of labor and interfer- the original inhabitants of the colonized ence with political and cultural structures of countries and European colonizers, locking another territory or nation ” (Loomba, 2005 , them in “ the most complex and traumatic p. 11). As Robert Young (2001) observes, the relationship in human history ” (Loomba, word colonization taps a wide range of prac- 2005 , p. 8). This long traumatic relationship tices that, before the nineteenth century, had a tremendous infl uence on the psychol- lacked cohesion or ideological grounding. It ogies of both the colonized and the coloniz- was the association between colonization ers, deeply affecting their views of the world, and European imperialism that gave rise to of the other peoples, and of themselves. colonialism, which could be defi ned as colo- This infl uence did not cease once independ- nial practices inspired by imperialist motives ence treaties were signed, as the colonial and ideology. Modern – often characterized experience continues to impregnate the cul- as capitalist – imperialism had economic as tures and identities of both formerly colo- well as political dimensions: nizing and formerly colonized peoples. As a consequence, colonialism still affects their The ideological justifi cation of the mission civilisatrice notwithstanding, the real aim current interactions, be it in the context of of the nineteenth - century imperial system international relations or in that of contacts was to combine the provision of domestic between majority members and immigrants political and economic stability with the or indigenous peoples in Western countries. production of national prestige and closed (See : markets in the international arena through ; .) conquest. (Young, 2001 , p. 31) Accordingly, psychological analyses have occupied a central position in anticolonial An expression originating from Marxist cri- and postcolonial critiques. This article will tiques of post - World War II Western impe- summarize some of the main features of rialism, neocolonialism was described as these analyses. After defi ning key concepts, “ the last stage of imperialism ” by the it will address the colonial situation as a Ghanaian leader Kwame Nkrumah (1965, in
The Encyclopedia of Peace Psychology, First Edition. Edited by Daniel J. Christie. © 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2012 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2 :
Young, 2001 ). According to this critique, The contention that the relationship bet- while colonized people gained formal politi- ween Europeans and colonized peoples cal control over their countries after decolo- was analogous to that of parents and chil- nization, the major world powers – usually dren then provided moral justifi cation for the same as the former colonial ones – the civilizing and christianizing missions. continued to exercise their economic Hence these lines by Kipling: “ Take up the hegemony, therefore perpetuating the White Man ’ s burden . . . to serve your cap- dependence of the previously colonized tives ’ needs; . . . your new - caught, sullen areas. peoples, half - devil and half - child ” (in Jahoda, 1999 , p. 148). This representation inspired scientifi c theories – such as arrested develop- POSTCOLONIALISM ment and biogenic law – as well as popular conceptions of cultural otherness, a source The meaning of the term postcolonial (with of stereotypes still anchoring contemporary or without the hyphen) is widely discussed. racial prejudice. When referring to a situation, its scope is Prolonged contact with colonized much wider than that of neocolonialism, as it patients also fed some European psychia- encompasses all aspects of the situation fol- trists ’ theories about the effects of race and lowing formal colonialism, including its cul- culture on their psychology and psychopa- tural and psychological legacy. However, the thology (Mahone & Vaughan, 2007 ). They term also refers to a trend of critical thinking concluded that even the “ normal ” colonial addressing that situation, often inspired by subjects, suffering from intellectual debilita- poststructuralism (hence the “ post ” ). This tion, impulsivity, fatalism, or paranoia, were trend emerged in the 1980s, following the “ essentially abnormal. ” They attributed this publication of Edward Said ’ s Orientalism , and abnormality either to the effects of “ tribal- “ postcolonial studies ” burgeoned during the ism ” or “ detribalization ” in East Africa, or to next decades, mostly in English literature those of Islam in North Africa. According to departments. These authors, although colonial psychiatrists, these cultural infl u- adopting various and often diverging per- ences had measurable effects on brain struc- spectives, reanimated an interest in colonial- ture. Alongside social anthropologists, they ism, rediscovering anticolonial authors as also laid down the basis of acculturation and well as proposing new directions. cross - cultural psychologies. These psychiat- ric theories had political consequences since, COLONIALISM AS A SOURCE OF by emphasizing essential differences between KNOWLEDGE ABOUT Europeans and natives, they fueled argu- THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ments against independence. Hence, antico- THE COLONIZED OTHERS lonial resistance was often coded as madness or infantile regression. Gustav Jahoda (1999) recounts the history of However, psychology was also mobilized Occidental representations of the other by anticolonialists to delegitimize colonial- peoples, starting from antiquity. These ism. Octave Mannoni described the colonial images existed far before the colonial era, situation as pathogenic and warned against but colonization brought a shift in repre- the erroneous attributions of psychopatho- sentation: from being viewed as ferocious logical symptoms to native cultures or their animal - like savages, non - Europeans came to inability to face modernization, as they be seen as childlike primitives lacking emo- were, in fact, the very products of colonial tional control, intelligence, and morality. domination itself. : 3
THE COLONIAL SITUATION: But Fanon and Memmi argued that colo- DISPOSSESSION AND USURPATION nial violence affected both its agents and its recipients. According to Albert Memmi Paradoxically, Mannoni ’ s psychoanalytical (1957, in Young, 2001 ), the colonialist real- explanation of the Malagasy revolt of 1947 ized his privilege was illegitimate and there- was fundamentally essentialist. He argued fore knew he was a usurper. He then suffered that colonized people suffered from a from a “ Nero complex ” that only amplifi ed “ dependence complex, ” which led them to his racism: the more he oppressed the colo- transfer their need for domination from nized, the more he realized the atrocity of their ancestors to the colonizers, while the the role he had chosen, and his hatred of latter tried to cure their own “ inferiority the usurped grew. Similarly, C é saire deno- complex.” Aim é C é saire strongly opposed unced the moral hypocrisy of colonialism: these views, which he saw as a mere renewal “ Henceforth the colonized know that they of the childlike savage image. Frantz Fanon have an advantage over them. They know also criticized Mannoni ’ s views for being that their temporary ‘ masters ’ are lying. reductionist. Fanon more subtly combined Therefore that their masters are weak ” a sociopolitical and economic analysis (1955, in Loomba, 2005 , p. 154). inspired by Marxist dialectics with a psycho- analytical analysis of the colonial situation. As a psychiatrist in French Algeria, and THE POSTCOLONIAL SITUATION: himself a French Antillean, Fanon discov- DECOLONIZING MINDS ered the impossibility of his mission, due to the profound “ depersonalization ” of the This dialectical, ambivalent, and mutually Arab subjects under colonialist oppression. destructive relationship is also the center of As such, what he described as a “ white mask attention of postcolonial essayists. Hence, psychology ” is to be explained by political analyzing the British colonization of India, factors – racialized power, colonial violence, Ashis Nandy (1983, in Young, 2001 ) posits and cultural subordination – rather than that this relationship brought equal aliena- through a purely psychological analysis. The tion to the two groups. Although political problem of the native subject – whom domination formally ceased with decoloni- Fanon calls “the negro ” – is that of being a zation, minds are still colonized nowadays. subject in a situation where one is constantly The “ intimate enemy ” is the ongoing state reminded of one ’ s inferiority through the of mind that leads dominated people to imposition of the hostile cultural values of accept the stereotypes of the dominants ’ dis- the colonizers, following the eradication of course, and the dominant to compromise one ’ s own cultural resources. This creates a themselves by perpetuating them. Nandy dissonance between ego and culture, self also observes that colonialism managed to and society, in which the colonial subject impose “ a culture in which the ruled are experiences him or herself as a “ phobic constantly tempted to fi ght their rulers object, ” causing a deep - rooted sense of infe- within the psychological limits set by the riority, a confl icting identity, and a lack of latter ” (in Young, 2001 , p. 342). Opposing agency (Hook, 2005 ). The black subject then colonialism within the fi eld of Western dis- mimics white culture: black skin, white course therefore perpetuates this coloniza- masks. According to Fanon, only active, tion of minds. Nandy hence delineates one violent rebellion could allow colonized of the major issues in postcolonial thinking: people to recover their sense of agency and the diffi culty for formerly colonized peoples identity. to articulate their own discourse and defi ne 4 : their own identity without relying exclu- colonial times. For example, Licata and sively on the ways of thinking instilled by Klein compared former Belgian colonials colonization. However, most postcolonial and Congolese colonized persons ’ represen- thinkers do not advocate a return to preco- tations of different periods of the Congolese lonial cultural purity. Homi Bhabha envi- colonization ’ s history, still an important part sions cultural hybridity as a way of of their social identities; Pereira de Sa and countering colonial power: by blurring Castro studied Portuguese and Brazilian intercultural boundaries, and therefore by social representations of the discovery of de - essentializing the colonized, the blending Brazil; and Volpato and Cantone analyzed of native and European cultures produced representations of colonized people as they an ambivalence that gradually altered the appeared in the Italian Fascist press under authority of colonial power. Mussolini (see Volpato & Licata, 2010 ). The emergence of indigenous psycholo- Finally, examples of colonial violence are gies echoes this trend of thought. Distinct often used in experiments on collective emo- from other culture - oriented branches of psy- tions. Reminders of colonial violence can chology (cultural and cross - cultural), indig- trigger collective guilt or shame among enous psychologies have developed in members of formerly colonizing nations, different parts of the world – often in former motivating them to initiate reparative behav- colonized countries – as a response to the iors and adopt more positive attitudes domination of Occidental mainstream psy- towards the formerly colonized populations. chology, which is seen as but one illegiti- Conversely, the present inhabitants of for- mately dominant indigenous psychology. merly colonized countries may experience Their project is to use local cultural resources anger and resentment and assign collective to develop their own psychological sciences. guilt to the descendants of the colonizers, However, some have observed that they run which can fuel international confl icts. A the risk of reifying these cultures, thus re - similar phenomenon is that immigrant essentializing non - Western subjects. minorities in Western countries sometimes compete to be granted recognition of their status as victims of colonization, which THE COLONIAL IN PSYCHOLOGY might lead them to derogate other minority groups, again resulting in intergroup In contrast to the frequent use of psycho- confl icts. logical concepts in anticolonial and postco- lonial critiques, colonialism, as a topic of investigation, is scarce in contemporary psy- CONCLUSION chological science, even in its cultural branches. However, there exist interesting Contemporary prejudice and intergroup exceptions. Some researchers address the tensions often arise from simplistic or inac- contemporary consequences of colonialism curate representations of the colonial past, on mental health. For example, the noxious when these collective memories are not effects of the “ colonial mentality ” on the simply blocked when judged as too threaten- mental health of former Filipinos or Filipino ing for social identities. A thorough work of immigrants in the United States are being memory is necessary to “ decolonize minds ” studied (Okazaki, David, & Abelmann, on both sides of the colonial divide. This 2008 ). work could only be achieved through an Another trend of research in social psy- active dialogue between formerly colonized chology addresses collective memories of and formerly colonizing peoples, in which : 5 these collective memories could be debated Mahone , S. , & Vaughan , M. ( 2007 ). Psychiatry and commonly elaborated. This would and empire . Basingstoke, UK : Palgrave allow the former subalterns to affi rm their Macmillan . voice, and the former oppressors to restore Okazaki , S. , David , E. J. R. , & Abelmann, N. their moral dignity. However, this cannot be ( 2008 ). Colonialism and psychology of culture . Social and Personality Psychology achieved as long as structural inequalities are Compass , 2 ( 1 ), 90 – 106 . perpetuated. Volpato , C. , & Licata , L. ( 2010 ). Introduction: Collective memories of colonial violence . SEE ALSO: Culture and Confl ict; Peace Interna tional Journal of Confl ict and Violence , Psychology: Contributions from Africa. 4 , 4 – 10 . Young , R. J. C. ( 2001 ). Postcolonialism: An historical introduction . Oxford, UK : Blackwell . REFERENCES
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