Beyond The Masks: Race, Gender And Subjectivity (critical Psychology Series)

Psychology has had a number of things to say about black and coloured people, none of them favourable, and most of which have reinforced stereotyped and derogatory images. Beyond the Masks is a readable account of black psychology, exploring key theoretical issues in race and gender. In it, Amina Mama examines the history of racist psychology, and of the implicit racism throughout the discipline. Beyond the Masks also offers an important theoretical perspective, and will appeal to all those involved with ethnic minorities, gender politics and questions of identity. Psychology has had a number of things to say about black and colonised peoples. Beyond the Masks is a book which seeks to go beyond Franz Fanon's concept of black identity as a 'white mask', placing race and gender at the centre of our understanding of identity. Amina Mama argues that rather than simply internalising what psychological theory and dominant culture have to say about them, black women invoke collective history in a continuous struggle to counteract the racism and sexism of their cultural milieu and so to develop new subjectivities. The contradictions imposed on individuals by an oppressive social order inspire personal struggles that generate a new self-awareness and lead to social change. Colonial and racist psychological discourses on 'the African' and 'the Negro' are located in the history of slavery and colonialism, demonstrating the complex interplay between psychological science and dominant interests. To overcome this hegemony, Amina Mama re-theorises subjectivity as a continuous creative and dynamic response to the mechanisms of domination and subjugation. Through a study of the changing consciousness of a number of black women, she uses the racialised and gendered aspects of identity as the base for a radically different conceptualisation of subjectivity itself. Beyond the Masks is an exciting book which, using the insights of contemporary social theory, investigates the history of racist psychology and then theorises the dynamics of black femininity. It will appeal to a wide and diverse audience, including all those involved with gender politics and ethnic identity. Psychology has had a number of derogatory things to say about black and colonial people, most of which reinforce stereotyped images. Beyond the Masks is an incisive and readable account of black subjectivity, exploring the role of power relations in the production of academic discourses. Amina Mama examines the history of imperial psychology, and the way in which the discipline has propagated racism. Beyond the Masks also offers an important theoretical perspective, and will appeal to all those studying ethnicity, gender and questions of identity. An incisive and readable book which applies the insights of complex areas of contemporary social theory, first to investigate the history of racist psychology, and then to theorise the dynamics of black feminism.