On the Foundation of the Indigenous Psychologies

Abstract

Scientific indigenous psychologies have been developed mostly in non‐western countries. Indigenous psychologies, seeing mainstream psychology as too western in its cultural foundation, are based on the culture of the society being investigated. In this article I critique the concept of culture used by representative researchers of indigenous psychologies in the English‐language literature and contrast it to current concepts of culture in the social sciences. Furthermore, I argue that the concept of culture used in this literature has implications for the cultural contents that are identified as the culture of a specific society. I also suggest that the political dimensions of what contents of culture are associated with a specific society are not given sufficient attention in this literature. Finally, alternative approaches to culture for the indigenous psychologies are discussed.

Keywords:

• Indigenous Psychologies
• Culture Concept
• Research Programme

Notes

[1] Sometimes more components are included or hinted at in the culture concept used, but these are not central to the current discussion and are not discussed here.