Conceptions of rural in Latin American Psychology: a systematic literature review

Some challenges have permeated the approach of Latin American Psychology to rural contexts, such as theoretical gaps regarding the rural category. Thus, this article discussed the conceptions used by Latin American Psychology to define rural, based on its scientific production. To search for scientific articles that dealt with this theme, we used the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyzes (PRISMA) as a guide. Thus, the term “Psychology” and the Boolean descriptor and for the terms “rural area” and “rural population” were used, in Portuguese, English and Spanish, and in the following databases: PubMed, PsycINFO, Redalyc, Scielo, PEPSIC e LILACS. Narrative, systematic and meta-analysis reviews were excluded and empirical studies on the topic, written by psychologists in Latin American countries, were included, reaching a total of 89 articles. The results show a predominance of conceptions of physical-geographical sense. Despite this, an effort was identified to present and discuss the specifics of rural contexts. In this way, the importance of problematizing theoretical aspects about the concept of rural is emphasized, understanding that it is not just a place, but a category of theoretical reflection.

Advancing Research Within Asian American Psychology Using Asian Critical Race Theory and an Asian Americanist Perspective

Research within Asian American psychology continually grows to include a range of topics that expand on the heterogeneity, hybridity, and multiplicity of the Asian American psychological experience. Still, research focused on distinct racialization and psychological processes of Asians in America is limited. To advance scientific knowledge on the study of race and racism in the lives of Asian Americans, we draw on Asian critical race theory and an Asian Americanist perspective that emphasizes the unique history of oppression, resilience, and resistance among Asian Americans. First, we discuss the rationale and significance of applying Asian critical race theory to Asian American psychology. Second, we review the racialized history of Asians in America, including the dissemination of essentialist stereotypes (e.g., perpetual foreigner, model minority, and sexual deviants) and the political formation of an Asian American racial identity beginning in the late 1960s. We emphasize that this history is inextricably linked to how race and racism is understood and studied today in Asian American psychology. Finally, we discuss the implications of Asian critical race theory and an Asian Americanist perspective to research within Asian American psychology and conclude with suggestions for future research to advance current theory and methodology.

Foundations for an Arab/MENA Psychology

Arab/Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) American psychology is a field rooted in ethnic studies and multicultural psychology. Although its study is relatively nascent in U.S. psychology, it has slowly been growing since the 1990s. The events of 9/11 resulted in an increase in psychological research on the Arab/MENA population in the United States, providing empirical evidence to inform the historical and social foundations for an Arab/MENA psychology. This article seeks to identify key elements and factors present in an Arab/MENA psychology focusing on issues of identity and recognition, discrimination, cumulative racial-ethnic trauma, acculturation, and cultural values, such as hospitality and generosity, morality, family centricity, honor and shame, religiosity, and communication style.

Promoting New Psychological Understandings by Use of an Indigenous American Psychological Paradigm

Indigenous Americans are not well represented by mainstream psychology and its reductionistic tenets. As psychology developed, it could not help but to be implicitly biased by the surrounding hierarchical colonial culture—a culture in which Indigenous people and many others were conquered, oppressed, dehumanized, devalued, neglected, and excluded. An Indigenous worldview views humans as co-equal partners of an interdependent holistic system. Striving for healthy relationships with others is foundational to psychological health and well-being from an Indigenous perspective. Discrete entities (including self), independence, autonomy, and hierarchy are considered artificial mainstream conceptualizations that have negatively impacted the well-being of humans and the natural world. Indigenous American psychology appreciates the sacred nature of the whole and its entities, approaching professional psychology with the humility and respect that interacting with sacred entities warrants. Essential tenets of an Indigenous American Psychological Paradigm (IAPP) are discussed therein as an alternative to existing mainstream beliefs. An IAPP offers the ability to address intergenerational psychological problems holistically across time in ways that mainstream psychology has been unable. Psychology is ultimately strengthened by an ability to conceptualize psychology through the new lenses of alternative paradigms such as this one.

Coloniality and Psychology: From Silencing to Re-Centering Marginalized Voices in Postcolonial Times

We adopt a decolonizing framework in this article to examine how legacies of colonialism and coloniality continue to manifest in Euro-American psychology. The population of India is now over 1.2 billion people with over 356 million young; they make up the world’s largest youth population, but their stories remain largely invisible in Euro-American psychology. For this article, we draw on a growing body of research by decolonial theorists and our ethnographic research. We argue that Euro-American psychological science now reworks the old forms of imperialism and domination in neoliberal contexts of globalization. In particular, we analyze (a) how mainstream psychological knowledge of “culture” and “diversity” have reinforced a neoliberal self in postcolonial India; (b) the varied ways in which identities, values, and mental health experiences of marginalized communities have been silenced and ignored through the application of Euro-American psychiatric and colonial psychological knowledge; and (c) how persistent caste-based violence and exploitation in contemporary times reflects the “internal coloniality” of Indian society.

Aproximaciones a una Psicología Latinoamericana / Approaches to a Latin American Psychology

Este artículo sostiene que, la Psicología en general, como la mayoría de las Ciencias Sociales en América Latina, continúa legitimando una forma de conocimiento científico fragmentario, parcelario, a-histórico e individual. Poder analizar la relación entre Psicología, Ciencia Moderna y Colonialismo puede ser un punto de partida. La ciencia moderna occidental representa una mirada del mundo, que obedece a un modelo episté-mico desplegado por la Modernidad, y que no es otra cosa, que la reproducción de una hegemonía cultural, económica y política de occidente, en definitiva, una herencia colonial del capitalismo actual. La trascenden-cia epistémica para una psicología latinoamericana, no solamente implica una alternativa científica, también implica una alternativa histórica, política, ética y ontológica.