Liberation Psychology and Refusal

To refuse is to assume a stance against that which is. We take up refusal when we push back, disinvest, ignore, and move away from. Although we tend to acknowledge the political character of refusal, the psychological character of our struggles to refuse is often not given requisite attention. Neglecting to grapple with refusal’s psychological components can, however, have fracturing, detrimental effects on our political struggles. This book considers what it might mean to wield psychology for purposes of refusal – a rather complicated task when we consider that most of psychology has sought to pathologise, manage, or individualise refusal. The book grapples with three anti-capitalist refusals that have been advanced in the liberation psychology tradition, namely: de-alienation, de-ideologisation, and de-naturalisation. Each of these refusals is fleshed out with a reflection on a practical example from the author’s community-engaged work in South Africa. Thus, the book seeks to demonstrate how we might put refusal’s conceptual components into practice. In this, readers are offered a set of praxis-oriented modalities through which to honour refusal within the liberation psychology paradigm. The book is intended for academics, educators, psychological practitioners, and students interested in drawing from critical, anti-capitalist traditions within psychology and perhaps, also, outside of psychology.