Indigenous psychology: Difficult engagements with culture and power

Abstract

Since the late 1970s, psychologists from several developing countries have launched indigenization movements upon the realization that mainstream Western psychology was ill-fitted to their cultures. Among these international movements, Kuo-Shu Yang (1932–2018) played a leadership role in the establishment of a vibrant Chinese indigenous psychology, which expanded from Taiwan to other greater Chinese regions. Upon Yang’s passing away in 2018, Louise Sundararajan, Kwang-Kuo Hwang, and Kuang-Hui Yeh edited this volume to commemorate his life and work. Contributions to this volume come from key scholars in Chinese indigenous psychology as well as allied scholars who approach this field from international and transdisciplinary backgrounds. The volume is divided into three major sections. The first section is largely biographical. Featuring contributions from Yang’s close associates, this section provides a rare opportunity for readers to learn about Yang not only as a scholar, but also as a person, a colleague, a mentor, and a political activist. Building on this memorial section, the second and third sections serve as a forum where scholars extend their assessments of Yang’s legacy to analyses of the status and future of indigenous psychology. When developing these two sections, the editors asked the contributors to provide critical reflections while having close dialogue among themselves. This was an excellent approach to honor Yang as a visionary scholar and a community builder. To begin with, one critical reflection is concerned with the epistemological foundation of Yang’s scholarship. Although Yang suggested that Indigenous psychologists should adopt multiple paradigms, his view of indigenous psychology was fundamentally shaped by his positivist training. Kwang-Kuo Hwang, based on his knowledge of the philosophy of science, discusses several epistemological issues in Yang’s writings, including the notion of indigenous compatibility, the question of interpretation, inductive methods, and the proposal of a bottom-up approach for expanding indigenous psychology to global psychology. A second question pertains to universality, namely to what degree findings made in one particular culture could shed light on phenomena in other cultures. In this regard, 1094551 TAP0010.1177/09593543221094551Theory & PsychologyReview research-article2022