Praxivist imaginaries of decolonization: Can the psy be decolonized in the world as we know it?

Abstract

Guided by Denise Ferreira da Silva’s contributions to decolonization through a black feminist poethical mode of intervention, this article overall offers the provocation: Is decolonization possible in this world as we know it? Having been provoked by this question and its implications ourselves, we deem this provocation both necessary and an important contribution to the topic of this special issue. Within this provocation we briefly consider decolonization of the psy-disciplines, decolonization of the psy-curriculum, and decolonization as the end of the world as we know it, particularly through a praxivist imaginary. With this, we furthermore consider the radical potentials of abolition pedagogies that guide us to state that mental health, or the psyche, or the professions that take the psyche as their object of study, cannot be decolonized in the context of the world as we know it.