cultura & psyché: Journal of Cultural Psychology (2022) 3:185–187

https://doi.org/10.1007/s43638-023-00071-5

EDITORIAL

Editorial: Colonization and decolonization of the mind

Pradeep Chakkarath · Doris Weidemann

Accepted: 24 July 2023 / Published online: 2 August 2023

© The Author(s) 2023

Colonization usually refers to a process of appropriating and occupying land; colo-

nialism primarily means the establishment and maintenance of a very specific rela-
tionship of domination. The most far-reaching colonizing and colonialist enterprise,
and the one with the most far-reaching consequences in terms of its geopolitical im-
pact to this day, is the European conquest and occupation of large parts of the non-
European world and the suppression of its populations—an enterprise that began
in the late fifteenth century and supposedly ended with the dissolution of colonial
empires and the release of most colonized societies into their political independence
in the second half of the twentieth century. Although the political and territorial
entities that were called colonial empires certainly no longer exist, the colonialist,
i.e., asymmetrical, relations between the former colonial powers and their former
colonies have survived the centuries. The reason for this is that Western colonialism
not only pursued economic and political interests but was also guided by a spir-
itual attitude, a colonial spirit, that had its cognitive and racist foundation in the
conviction of the superiority of white European people—especially white European
men—and their achievements. The fact that this spirit is still perceptible today is
reflected in culturally established disqualifying, xenophobic and racist discourses,
statements, stereotypes and prejudices that continue to influence many of our inter-
cultural encounters and continue to be directed for the most part against people from
regions formerly dominated by European colonialism and who are not considered
“white.” When talking about the colonial spirit, however, one should be attentive to

 Pradeep Chakkarath · Doris Weidemann

Department of Social Psychology and Social Anthropology, Ruhr-University Bochum, Bochum,
Germany
E-Mail: pradeep.chakkarath@rub.de
Faculty of Applied Languages and Intercultural Communication, University of Applied Sciences
Zwickau, Zwickau, Germany

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186 P. Chakkarath, D. Weidemann

the fact that it is not only about certain attitudes of the colonialists, but also about
how these very attitudes were inscribed into the institutions of colonized societies
and only in this way were able to unfold their enormous and persistent epistemic
power, which is identified, described, analyzed, and criticized especially in so-called
postcolonial studies.
European colonization led to the dissemination and establishment of certain
views, thinking styles, discourses and knowledge systems that were mainly shaped
and prescribed by the so-called Western, i.e., the colonizers’ world. Among the
most important vessels in which these supporting elements of colonialism were
transported to the conquered territories were the sciences and their institutions. The
successful globalization of the sciences was not the result of an equal and non-hege-
monial scientific exchange based on the recognition of the others’ achievements and
knowledge, which scientific textbooks like to present as the ethical basis of any sci-
entific exchange; rather, it was the politically intended result of the seizure of global
power by Europe with the help of its military, economic, and scientific resources.
To a far greater extent than the sciences themselves have been willing to reflect over
the centuries, they—in particular the social and cultural sciences—became effective
instruments and willing servants of Western colonialism. Within their procedures of
data collection, data interpretation, and theory development, they put ethnocentric
standards in place in such a way that almost all non-Western ways of thinking and
seeing could be dismissed as prescientific, immature and inferior. This ethnocentric
approach could then easily be used as a legitimation for devaluing and then replac-
ing theories and categories that helped societies to understand themselves and their
worlds by theories and categories imported and imposed by the colonial masters.
Postcolonial studies, sometimes referred to as postcolonialism, have their roots in
the multiple disputes between colonial powers and the populations they colonized.
In part, these disputes began early, from the sixteenth century onward, in the human
rights debates that took place within the colonial powers themselves, for example, in
debates between the church and some of the missionaries who worked in colonized
territories in Latin America, in Africa, and in Asia. In contemporary postcolonial
investigations, there is an increasing focus on the analysis of the continuing effects
of colonization on issues of identity construction and knowledge production, with
the two being viewed as intimately interdependent. In related postcolonialist con-
tributions, prominent recent concepts such as epistemic violence, epistemic harm,
epistemic injustice, or even epistemicide illustrate that postcolonial studies not only
critically depict the colonialist legacy in the sciences, they also call for finding
ways out of this historically rooted dominance, which is not only scientifically but
also psychologically harmful and continues to be pursued by large parts of West-
ern science in terms of science policy. As before, the evaluation and international
dissemination of knowledge is largely controlled by the West: the most interna-
tionally influential scholarships and prizes are awarded by Western institutions, the
most important scientific publishing houses and their journals are institutionalized
in Western societies and publish largely in English, the language of what was once
the most powerful European colonial power. Although most social scientists, in-
cluding psychologists, who have been socialized in non-Western contexts and non-
Western languages are more familiar with non-Western lifeworlds than their Western

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Editorial: Colonization and decolonization of the mind 187

colleagues, the majority of so-called prominent experts on the social and the cul-
tural are mainly Western colleagues, who are also much more visible in the leading
journals of their research fields.
If today—more audibly than a few decades ago—there are calls for the decol-
onization not only of politics but also of the sciences, including the psychological
disciplines, it is difficult to overlook the part that postcolonial studies have played
in the description and analysis of the problems outlined above. In order to tie in
with postcolonialist suggestions and deconstruction efforts that are rare in so-called
mainstream psychology, the two editors of this special issue organized the lecture
series “Decolonizing psychological research and theory” some time ago, in which
colleagues from many parts of the world, including Western and non-Western re-
gions, participated. The contributions collected here are only a few examples of
reflections on the problems raised and of suggestions for future improvement of an
unfortunate and difficult situation—not just for science and scientists but especially
for the billions of people who are rarely represented and frequently distorted in
dominating social scientific imaginations about the world and the humans living in
it. Thus, the contributions may give an idea of what decolonization can mean and
which actions can be taken to solve at least some of the current problems in a manner
that helps to provide ground for a culturally sensitive and interculturally competent
psychology that is locally, globally, and scientifically useful, and does not merely
assist in making non-Western ideas about humans and their psyche invisible.
First and foremost, we would like to thank all our international colleagues who
made it possible for us to meet and exchange ideas and who fruitfully stimulated
future exchanges. We are also thankful for the support we received from the Hans
Kilian and Lotte Köhler Center (KKC) at the Ruhr University Bochum and from the
Society for Cultural Psychology.
Bochum and Zwickau, Germany, July 2023
Pradeep Chakkarath & Doris Weidemann
Funding Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.

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