Abstract
Black psychological empowerment is an important construct within Africa(n)-centred psychology scholarship, yet, previous studies have not asked these scholars how they conceptualise it. The significance of this construct is mirrored socially by widespread recognition that the complexities of the experience of slavery, colonisation and apartheid continue to influence the psychological life of African descendants globally, prompting calls for psychological healing. In its breakaway from the dominant deficit-deficiency-based narrative of mainstream EuroAmerican psychology, Black/African psychology advocated the urgent need to liberate American and diasporic Africans from mental slavery. This paved the way for African psychology, which has been similarly unanimous on the pressing need to liberate the continental African mind from colonisation, including apartheid. In response, Africa(n)-centred psychology scholarship puts forward a broad scope of orientations through which it centres the liberatory needs of Africa(ns) in their relationship with psychology. In this study, I conducted in-depth semi-structured interviews with 14 Africa(n)-centred psychology scholars. Eleven are employed at universities; 10 are in South Africa, one is in Botswana, and three occupy senior positions in the NGO/NPO sector in South Africa, the United States and the United Kingdom. I employed reflexive thematic analysis to identify common patterns in how they conceptualise black psychological empowerment in the context of complexities of the experience of slavery, colonisation and apartheid. Through the lens of temporality, I gleaned three conceptual themes; historical coalescence, contemporary complexities and a psychologised future. When reflecting on the impact of this experience, these scholars construct an almost seamlessly coherent narrative of this history. However, they make an important conceptual shift as they move into the present by giving due consideration to complexities, competing priorities and intersectionality. Then, they locate black psychological empowerment in the interiority of the psyche by focusing on academia and private practice. On the surface, this points to a struggle by Africa(n)-centred psychology to conceptualise itself outside of psychology’s hegemonic disciplinary boundaries. On a deeper level, this struggle reveals how institutionalised disciplinary power deploys a variety of internal and external regulatory apparatuses through which coloniality vigilantly reinvents and sustains itself.