A critical psychology of the postcolonial

Of the theoretical resources typically taken as the underlying foundations of critical social psychology, elements, typically, each of Marxism, feminism, psychoanalysis, and Post-Structuralism, one particular mode of critique remains notably absent: postcolonial theory. What might be the most crucial contributions that postcolonial critique can make to the project of critical psychology? One answer is that of a reciprocal forms of critique, the retrieval of a ‘psychopolitics’ in which we not only place the psychological within the register of the political, but - perhaps more challengingly - in which the political is also, strategically, approached through the register of the psychological. What the writings of Fanon and Biko make plain in this connection is the degree to which the narratives and concepts of the social psychological may be reformulated so as to fashion a novel discourse of resistance, one that opens up new avenues for critique for critical psychology, on one hand, and that affords an innovative set of opportunities for the psychological investigation of the vicissitudes of the postcolonial, on the othe

Understanding the Connections between the EU Global Strategy and Somali Peacebuilding Education Needs and Priorities

This paper examines the connections between identity politics and European Union (EU) aid effectiveness in peacebuilding education in Somalia. It engages with a severe educational challenge, which is that a lack of capacity in rigorous educational design and/or implementation across Somali Ministries in the South Central Zone, Somaliland and Puntland has led to the importation of multiple foreign curricula into the country simultaneously that do not address Somali history and contemporary conflict drivers and that frequently clash with local values as well as with each other. We critique this from a ‘new barbarism’ perspective, arguing that Somali voices and educational priorities have not been provided a sufficient space for expression in the EU debate on the global and therefore also the national development agenda