Thinking Critically About Psychology in South Africa

PINS, 2002, 28, 50-53

Thinking critically about psychology in South Africa

Book review Seedat, M, Duncan, N & Lazurus S, (eds) (2001) Community psychology. Theory, method and practice: South African and other perspectives. Cape Town: Oxford University Press. ISBN 019 571922 0

Kerry Frizelle School of Psychology University of Natal Durban

Seven years after the abolishment of apartheid in South Africa, the first volume in this country dedicated specifically to the subject of community psychology has been published. The editors are to be commended for pulling together the expertise of leading academics and practitioners (mostly South African) into a comprehensive volume that deals with contemporary theory, methodology and the practice of community psychology. In the introduction to this volume the editors Seedat, Lazurus and Duncan comment on the way in which community psychology (primarily in the southern hemisphere) came to be associated with broad democratic movements that sought to dismantle oppressive state structures and ideological state apparatuses. Within South Africa community psychology emerged in the 1980s as a radical challenge to the discriminatory practices embodied in mainstream apartheid psychology. One of the central aims of this volume is to critically reflect on the development and effectiveness of the theory, method and practice of community psychology in South Africa more than a decade after its formal emergence and to pose questions about its future development and relevance. The editors argue that an explicit intention of this volume is to encourage the reader to formulate their own critical questions and responses as they engage with the text’s content. This book is aimed at both students and practitioners in a variety of disciplines within the social sciences, ranging from psychology to those involved in development and transformation. Any lecturer, however, who chooses to use this volume to inform or compliment their course content...