Discovery, Solidarity and Politics in Psychology
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 May 2025
My account mimics my meandering academic career. I address questions that have animated me and continue to animate me. As a psychologist, I am interested in who knows or claims to know what about whom and to what ends. Influenced both by conventional scientific psychology and by psychoanalytic thinking, my work in disability studies with people excluded in many ways, like epistemically, has helped me to think deeply about different kinds of knowledge. This work is embedded in an activist orientation; I try to contribute to social change but am also aware of my knowledge limitations and identity in achieving change. Psychoanalytic thinking helps me think about difficult processes in community work and unpleasant possibilities of my work and that of my colleagues – our investments, for example, being in marginalized fields may, paradoxically, encourage us to resist these fields becoming less so, as we reproduce what we know. I am uncertain about much of what I think and know, but paradoxically again this uncertainty is what makes the work of discovery and the trial and error of social engagement fresh, interesting, and fun. This is a huge privilege.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.