http://fap.sagepub.

com/
Feminism & Psychology
http://fap.sagepub.com/content/23/2/264.citation
The online version of this article can be found at:

DOI: 10.1177/0959353512470375
2013 23: 264 Feminism & Psychology
Manasi Kumar
edition)
nd
Oppression and Liberation (2
Gender and Colonialism: A Psychological Analysis of Geraldine Moane,

Published by:
http://www.sagepublications.com
can be found at: Feminism & Psychology Additional services and information for

http://fap.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Email Alerts:

http://fap.sagepub.com/subscriptions Subscriptions:
http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Reprints:

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav Permissions:

What is This?

- Apr 25, 2013 Version of Record >>

at INIST CNRS DRD on October 30, 2014 fap.sagepub.com Downloaded from at INIST CNRS DRD on October 30, 2014 fap.sagepub.com Downloaded from
The authors conclude by suggesting that despite being surrounded by discourses
of gender equality, where women have been told that they have achieved equality,
ideological and essentialist notions of masculinity and femininity persist in the
perpetuation of inequalities in both the cultural industries and cultural texts. The
cumulative eect on culture of what the authors consider the discrediting and
dismantling of feminism over the last 20 years is nicely summed up by citing one
of Debbie Kleins interviewees in the advertising business: Its got worse because
everyone thinks its got better (Klein, 2000: 80).
Reference
Klein D (2000) Women in Advertising 10 Years On. London: Institute of Practitioners in
Advertising.
Geraldine Moane, Gender and Colonialism: A Psychological Analysis of Oppression and Liberation
(2
nd
edition). Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke, 2011, 248 pp., ISBN 978-0-333-99429-0 (pbk)
Reviewed by: Manasi Kumar, University of Nairobi, Kenya
This is the second edition of Geraldine Moanes book Gender and Colonialism
and as such it presents a wide coverage of inuences from within feminism,
psychology and postcolonial theory. The rst four chapters make for a dense
and exciting read and the next ve chapters discuss dierent scenarios, interven-
tions and specic postures and possibilities for change. The rst chapter Women,
Psychology and Society: The Personal is Political lays out, as the title suggests,
links between women and sociality, with personal change as a primary indicator
and precursor to political action. On the rst page itself Moane describes her
primary concern as . . .kto explore the connections between psychological pat-
terns and the political and social conditions associated with oppression and lib-
eration (p. 1). She adds that her aim is to rst develop an understanding of how
social conditions, particularly oppressive social conditions, can create debilitating
psychological patterns, often referred to as internalized oppression, and sec-
ondly, to identify processes and practices, which can aid in transforming oppres-
sive psychological and social patterns and attaining liberation (p. 1). This is in
essence the sort of awareness that the book tries to achieve in the nine chapters
over which it is spread. Moane argues throughout the rst few chapters that
traditional psychological analyses pathologize womens internalized oppression
and neglect structural factors, and she suggests that personal and psychological
factors as well as social conditions play a role in both oppression and liberation
(p. 2). Two interesting remarks are made here in relation to the feminist engage-
ment with individual psychological experiences. Moane suggests that feminist
analyses have at times tended to ignore the isolated personal experience of par-
ticular individuals and that the early womens liberation movement, and certainly
traditional psychology, undermines the impact of the personal and how it shapes
liberal political choices (p. 4). Moane analyzes the psychology of colonialism,
264 Feminism & Psychology 23(2)
at INIST CNRS DRD on October 30, 2014 fap.sagepub.com Downloaded from
oppression and patriarchy systematically by looking at the critical psychological
and political psychological scholarship on these thematics from within psych-
ology. In doing so, she builds up a connection between colonialism as replicating
patriarchy (in the form of a dominant group and a subordinate one) and the
cycle of oppression.
In describing the scope of her work, a theme that gets discussed fully in the
following two chapters (Chapter 2, Hierarchical Systems: Colonialism and
Patriarchy and Chapter 3, The Psychological Patterns Associated with
Hierarchical Systems: The Cycle of Oppression), Moane adds another layer to
her analysis: psychological patterns are shaped by social conditions, and social
conditions must be conceptualized at the macro levels as well as community and
micro levels (p. 21). She claims that the insights from these units of analyses would
be transformative and liberation psychology could be understood and developed
further. These two chapters outline the relationship between hierarchies and the
dynamics of domination-subordination, and identify social patterns by which hier-
archy is implemented and maintained. They do so through historical analyses of
patriarchy and colonialism. She discusses six modes of control that are crucial to
the analyses and contextualization of the Irish colonial past and the womens
movement discussed: violence, political exclusion, economic exploitation, cultural
control, control of sexuality and divide & rule (p. 36). Each of these modes of
control is described in its gendered and politico-personal context, situating it in the
dynamics of patriarchy and domination (mainly in a western context). In Chapter
3, Moane examines the psychological patterns that emanate from the conditions
described above, namely, fear, restriction, powerlessness, insecurity, distortions of
sexuality, sense of inferiority, isolation etc. (p. 57). In terms of spelling out the
psychology of oppression she indicates lasting patterns such as duality of con-
sciousness, horizontal hostility, patterns of dissimulation and loss of history as
signicant thematics that need further exploration (p. 84). In this section she
reviews works of feminist and postcolonial writers who have inuenced psychology
directly such as bell hooks, Cathleen ONeill, Suzanne Pharr. Others such as Franz
Fanon, Albert Memmi, Vincent Kenny, Ashis Nandy, Paulo Friere and Durans are
revisited to address issues around oppression and liberation psychology.
Chapter 4 Breaking out: the Cycle of Liberation, by contrast, examines liberation
psychologies and ways of challenging and resisting domination and subjugation.
Using works of writers discussed earlier and others like Mary Daly, Starhawk and
Martin-Baro, tasks of liberation are stressed. Liberation, claims Moane in discuss-
ing Mary Daly, involves undoing the mindbindings and psychic numbing to
which women are subjected, reconnecting with Original self and creating new
consciousness (p. 97). Another task is that of de-ideologization, or development
of critical consciousness (p. 108) and Daly highlights the value of analysis carried
out through action (p. 110). Quite aptly, Moane says that the psychological pro-
cesses are developmental in character, involving change over time which may
occur in small incremental steps, and some changes cannot occur until other
changes are in place (p. 111) and she reminds us of the three tiers in which
change has to be understood: personal, interpersonal and political.
Book reviews 265
at INIST CNRS DRD on October 30, 2014 fap.sagepub.com Downloaded from
Chapters 5, 6 and 7 explicate the Personal, Interpersonal and Political levels.
Building strengths, making connections and taking action are Moanes suggestions
in implementing liberation from psychic oppression, colonialism and patriarchy.
Chapter 7 makes signicant leaps with a discussion of structures of power, struc-
tural factors and participation in organized political movements and campaigns,
examination of class, ethnicity and other dimensions of oppression that operate
through control of political and other institutions and also through economic dis-
enfranchisement (p. 174).
Chapter 8, Liberation Psychologies in Action: Local and Global Example, looks
at Moanes own outreach engagements and development of courses and workshops
in liberation psychology. She has tried implementing the theoretical framework she
has discussed and used participatory methodology and pedagogy in Ireland. To
this discussion she ties in psychologies of liberation, elaborating on scholarship in
other parts of the world and the Latin American and South African contributions
in particular.
Chapter 9, Interconnections between Personal and Political Change: Towards an
Egalitarian Society, is an exposition on liberation psychology and emancipatory
practice. Moanes suggestion is that the discourse needs to be critical of hierarchical
and traditional psychological approaches but at the same time it also needs to be
participatory and open to varied experiences, where practitioners will interrogate
their own privilege, developing awareness about dominator practices (p. 209). It
should recognize the value of structural factors but also be context sensitive and
follow the specicity principle that is linked to the appreciation of diversity and
unique perspectives and experiences of dierent individuals and groups (p. 210).
There are several other interjections she makes such as employing a bottoms-up
approach, being relational and collective, according signicance to analysis, which
is, linking subjective experience to social reality. Moane emphasizes a global per-
spective that recognizes and links global to local conditions such that thinking
through oppression and liberation is made possible.
The only concerns I have about this otherwise well researched book are, rstly,
at times it spoke only about women as subjected and oppressed and, though it
provided varied colonial frameworks that described the rigmarole of a mutually
exploitative oppressoroppressed cycle, it seemed to mainly speak for/about
womens oppression. Secondly, the authors own study interviewing women activ-
ists (described in chapter 5) remained a bit hazy about details and, although Moane
constantly made attempts to link ideas to the themes she touched upon in the
beginning four chapters, as a reader, I did not have sucient clarity about why
these activists were interviewed and what the interview process was like in its bare
bones.
All the same, Moane presents well-reasoned and systematic analyses of the roots
and psychological dynamics of oppression, as well as liberation, that in some senses
provides a template for carrying out further work on the themes of social justice
and raising political consciousness, critical psychology and the psychology of colo-
nialism which should fuel further work in liberation psychology. This book should
certainly inspire practitioners and students of psychology everywhere; it will also be
266 Feminism & Psychology 23(2)
at INIST CNRS DRD on October 30, 2014 fap.sagepub.com Downloaded from
useful material for teaching and research in critical, feminist and liberation psych-
ology courses.
Paula Reavey (ed.), Visual Methods in Psychology: Using and Interpreting Images in Qualitative
Research. Psychology Press: Hove, 2011, 370 pp., ISBN: 978-0-415-48348-3
Reviewed by: Nilufer Ercan, Middle East Technical University, Turkey
Photographs, videos, drawings, artwork, or namely the visual has long been in
our lives as part and witnesses of our experiences; but psychology has rarely
utilized it as a qualitative source rather than as mere research documentation or
face validity tool. In this book, Reavey states an aim to present an overview of
this emerging utilization based on theoretical, methodological, analytical and eth-
ical aspects. In order to do so, she brings a considerable number of authors with
dierent research agendas together in 23 chapters. These chapters are organized
into four main parts. The rst part involves research using photography for topics
of interest such as closeness, embodiment, identity, gender, health and autobio-
graphical memory. It is worth noting that research presented in the chapters
accommodates related theoretical and methodological details, oering guid-
ance on how to integrate visual data into the research and how to analyze and
interpret them. The second part includes research utilizing videos and visual
data found on social network sites. The latter sets forth the communicative role
of the visual as previously mistrusted and ignored data. The third part comprises
research that adapts visual methods for community psychology and social change
purposes (i.e. minorities, empowerment, participation). Worthy of note, this part
includes an interesting chapter covering the work conducted by an uncommon
collaboration of artists and academicians in order to disseminate psychological
research.
In a nutshell, meticulously selected chapters in the rst three parts thoroughly
illustrate the use of the visual as an enriching, integrative qualitative method in the
study of human experience, and they well exemplify how an important gap is lled
by this utilization. For instance, in chapter 4, Del Busso reveals that photo elicit-
ation (use of pre-existing photos) and photo production (photos taken by the
participant on purpose and during the research process) let participants provide
richer content about their experience in emotional, spatial, relational and sensuous
terms. Similarly Pini and Walkerdine (Chapter 10) state that participants better
disclose to a videotape in a less invasive environment. In addition to attaining
enriched content, other advantages that visual methods provide are exemplied
throughout the chapters (i.e. participants increased control over the data produced
and their active role in the research process).
The fourth and nal part of the book involves deep reections on ethical/ meth-
odological concerns, implications and advantages. Although they are slightly dis-
cussed within the chapters in the rst three parts, in this part, valuable insight is
provided for implementing feminist research ethics (i.e. reexivity, opportunities to
Book reviews 267
at INIST CNRS DRD on October 30, 2014 fap.sagepub.com Downloaded from