A CRITICAL GAZE AT PSYCHOLOGY

Hook, D (2007) Foucault, psychology and the analytics of power. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN-13 978-0-230-00819-9 hbk. Pages xii + 301. Foucault, psychology and the analytics of power provides a compelling critique of the established and taken for granted co-ordinates of modern psychology as a discipline and set of practices. It provides a much needed injection of criticality into a discipline and profession that has for far too long been complacent about its historically conservative origins, functions and effects, and which continues in the main to labour under the illusion that psychology is merely a discipline premised on humanistic forms of altruism in the search for “truth”. Written by Derek Hook, a prominent critical psychology scholar, this collection of essays begins with the promise of stripping away some of these illusory features of modern psychology. Not only does it deliver on this promise amply by highlighting psychology’s development as a socio-medical science alongside the evolution of relations of power from sovereignty, to humanistic reformism, to more insidious disciplinary forms of power, but spells out how psychology has come to epitomize certain technologies of self-regulation and a form of moral orthopaedics that in fact contributes to the development of a docile psychological subject. It then extends on this initial promise and examines the critical value of Foucault’s work in psychology and the social sciences more broadly today

Longitudinal career construction counselling for a black female student experiencing career indecision

This article reports on the longitudinal effect of career construction counselling on a black female student experiencing career indecision. Purposive sampling was used to select an adolescent experiencing career indecision. An integrative, QUALITATIVE-quantitative methodology was employed as the research lens, and a longitudinal, seven-year, explanatory, single-participant study design was adopted. The Career Construction Interview (CCI), the Career Interest Profile (CIP), and the Maree Career Matrix (MCM) were used to elicit the participant’s many micro-life stories and key life themes and to co-construct her future career-life story narrative. Adapted thematic data analysis incorporating the analytic style proposed by Savickas was carried out to analyse the data reflexively. In the short term, the participant's psychological self as a social actor was enhanced by confirming her career choice, and her psychological self as a motivated agent was promoted by bolstering her goal-setting capacity and sense of self. Longitudinally, her self- and career identity was clarified and her sense of hope rekindled (the self as an autobiographical author was strengthened). Future research should examine the short- and longer-term effects of the approach described here in diverse career counselling contexts. More information is needed on when drawing on the CCI as a standalone assessment intervention may suffice

THINKING ABOUT SELF-REPRESENTATION IN THE NARRATIVE-BASED APARTHEID ARCHIVE PROJECT

The article explores the role that a number of self-presentation related issues might play in the construction of the Apartheid Archive Project (AAP). It argues that both the web-based portal method of data collection, as well as the nature of the material being assembled - that being autobiographical accounts of recollections of racism under apartheid - suggest the likelihood of a particular kind of participation or subjectification on the part of many potential contributors. In constructing such narratives it has been observed that authors may seek to manage the manner in which they represent themselves and significant others in order both to meet the objectives of the AAP (as they interpret these) and simultaneously to manage self-esteem and the manner in which they are likely to become objects of scrutiny by others. Four central themes are discussed in order to elaborate aspects of self-representation that may be implicated in the AAP, these being: The Confessional Imperative; The Knowing Subject; The Restricted Repertoire of Identificatory Positions; and The Implication of Significant Others. Each of these is discussed in turn, together with some illustrative examples from the existing archive material. It is proposed that while these kinds of narrative influences may be inescapable in the assemblage of data of this kind, that it is important for those engaged in analysing and interpreting the contents of this archive to appreciate the ethical, methodological and epistemological tensions posed by this hypothesized aspect of the archival material

RE-IMAGINING BIKO

Mangcu, Xolela (2012) Biko: A biography. Cape Town: Tafelberg. ISBN 978-0-624-05413-9. Pages 348. Xolela Mangcu’s recent biography of Steve Biko takes up its place in the contested field of “Biko Studies”. It remains an open question as to why, given the explosion of scholarly interest in Biko, and his ever-increasing popularity as an icon of the liberation struggle, it has taken this long for a self-declared biography of Biko to appear

A CALL FOR A SCIENTIFIC APPROACH TO PREVENTION

Ward, C, van der Merwe, A & Dawes, A (eds) (2012) Youth violence. Sources and solutions in South Africa. Cape Town: UCT Press. ISBN 978-1-91989-587-1 pbk. Pages xv + 432. In the introductory chapter the editors tell us that “the overall goal of this book is to provide a summary of the evidence to date, so that policymakers and those who implement programmes to prevent youth violence may be alerted to the critical need for interventions that are based on evidence for effectiveness and designed in a manner that takes the causes into account”. Following this stated goal as well as the structure and contents of the book, one may surmise that the book is positioned as an intervention at several levels. At a conceptual level the book is constructed as a critique of the criminal justice approach to violence containment that stresses stringent retributive and punitive measures. The book categorically adopts an ecological model and so chapters two and three, constituting section one, represent a tightly crafted conceptual foundational framework for the rest of the edited volume. In describing the magnitude and patterns of violence, Don Foster, in chapter two, offers a critical reading of the gendered, class and race dimensions of violence. In chapter three, van der Merwe, Dawes and Ward systematically draw attention to the individual, familial, communal and societal risk factors and pathways to youth violence. The ecological framing of violence resonates throughout section two of the book, which comprises of ten chapters that focus on a range of topics, including youth violence in the early years, school-based youth violence, violence in out-of school contexts, gang violence, youthful sex offenders, media violence, youth offenders in the criminal justice system, and youth violence in cities. Each of these chapters methodically illustrates how violence may be prevented within specific sites, environments or developmental stages, consistent with their respective focus. The chapters in section two are primarily replete with high-income country examples of what works for youth violence prevention. For instance, chapter five written by Tomlinson, Dawes and the late Alan Fischer provide illustrative high-income country examples focused on infancy, toddlerhood and early childhood development stages. They also offer two South African examples implemented in Lavender Hill and Khayelitsha respectively. Given the gaps in the South African prevention science knowledge base, the editors and chapter authors in section two constantly and correctly make the point that these high-income country interventions would need to be tested for local cultural congruency and efficacy

RESEARCH IN PRACTICE, TAKE TWO

Terre Blanche, M, Durrheim, K and Painter, D (eds) (2006) Research in practice: Applied methods for the social sciences, 2nd edition. Cape Town: UCT Press. ISBN 1-9197-13697 pbk. 594 pages. Research in practice (RIP) has been substantively updated and reworked for its 2nd edition (RIP2). It was previously reviewed in PINS (Parker, 2001), and as a mark of its importance to interdisciplinary worlds of social science, psychologies and research methodology in South Africa (and beyond), it is reviewed again. A second review will inevitably refract inter-textual impressions of new and original versions. The text remains a courageous, sprawling trawl through the complex research-dialogues produced by “proliferation of radically divergent philosophies and techniques” (pviii). Pedagogically, it aims to scaffold soundly argued research processes for students in terms of major paradigms, designs and techniques. To achieve this aim, the editors have reconfigured somewhat haphazard chapters in the original version into more coherent (to my mind) thematic sections. Thus, Section 1 provides a broad overview of decision-making in the research process. Sections 2 and 3 examine the lore of quantitative and qualitative research practice respectively. Section 4 deals with the real-problems in real-contexts of applied research

QUALITATIVE RESEARCHING BEYOND TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES

Henning, E with Van Rensburg, W & Smit, B (2004) Finding your way in qualitative research. Pretoria: Van Schaik. ISBN 0-627-02545-5 pbk. Pages 179. Finding your way in qualitative research is not simply another qualitative research instruction manual offering tools, techniques and tricks for coding, or quick fixes for methodological mayhem. The text is aimed at social science students and researchers, and while it offers some how-to basics, it mainly claims to attend to “positioning” an investigation within epistemological, theoretical and design logics, and the practice of writing in qualitative inquiry. As its title suggests, finding your way, the text itself is conceived to work inductively to scaffold qualitative inquiry as a process, culminating in “qualitative research design” - as positioned methodological argumentation in writing proposals or reports – in the concluding chapter. As such, Finding your way in qualitative research is situated within an illustrious genre of qualitative research texts attending to paradigmatically situated, in-depth processes of inquiry, design, argument and writing for particular “audiences” (e.g. Van Maanen, 1988; Kvale, 1996; Creswell, 1998; Silverman, 2000). These texts function primarily as overview portals through which other more specialized or applied qualitative methods may be hyperlinked at strategic moments, to fashion a design-concordant, convincing and defendable argument

THE WAR AGAINST THE POOR

Gibson, Nigel, C (2011) Fanonian practices in South Africa. From Steve Biko to Abahlali baseMjondolo. Pietermaritzburg: UKZN Press / New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-86914-197-4. Pages xxii + 312. Nigel Gibson claims that without the establishment of the shack dwellers’ movement Abahlali baseMjondolo, he would not have been able to write Fanonian practices in South Africa. This is true, for while the book contains much of considerable theoretical value from one of the world’s foremost Fanon scholars, it is its grounding in the South African context, and particularly, in the struggles of Abahlali, that really underlies the force of the arguments presented