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human, it becomes possible to treat them in dehumanising ways.
Psychology and its practices thus emerged as a form of Eurocentric
knowledge production, that were closely tied to the geo-political and socio-
economic conditions of subjugation and domination of the oppressed. The
importance of highlighting the Eurocentrism of psychology is also in its
claim to providing universal, objective, and neutral understandings of the
human mind and behaviour (Buhlan 1993). Such a stance would restrict the
oppressed to a permanent category of inferior beings. On the contrary,
knowledge is always situated and responding to the agendas of those who
have the power to produce it and make it appear as universal ‘truth’.
In much mainstream psychology, the unit of analysis has been the
white, male, middle-class, heterosexual subject (Boonzaier 2006). What is
regarded as ‘normal’ behaviour is often derived from studies that
foreground the experiences of the aforementioned subject (Macleod 2004).
The experiences of black people, women, and gender queer individuals and
groups have been largely absent or pathologized (Shefer 2004; Shefer &
Potgieter 2006; Phoenix 1987). In addition, what is often recognised as
legitimate psychological research is either conducted by scholars located in
the global north or publications in Euro-American journals (Connell 2014).
These criticisms of the discipline are gaining traction in the current global
higher education context with calls to decolonise universities. The future of
psychology thus rests on a critical approach “to emancipate psychology
from its universal, scientific, and Eurocentric tenet” (Bhatia 2018).
A useful framework for such an agenda can be found in a decolonial
approach, coloniality being the manifestation of a modern and
contemporary world system in which the matrix of power between the
former colonisers and the former colonised is maintained (Ndlovu-
Gatsheni 2014). This takes place through the maintenance of global
economic inequalities, political influence, and various forms of social and
psychological control (Grosfoguel 2007; Maldonado-Torres 2007; Mignolo
2002; Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2014). As Grosfoguel (2007) suggests, coloniality
has painted a picture of the colonised over time as a people without
writing, without history, without development, and without democracy. A
decolonial approach is one that confronts the coloniality of power, the