Colonial methodologies: a discourse analysis of medical students’ talk about psychology

Abstract

The historical tension between the natural and social sciences, and the associated discourses of superiority and inferiority, remains prevalent today in academia and practice. This study analyses the discourses that medical students at a South African university employ in their talk about psychology. The analysis demonstrates the function of these discourses and locates them within historical debates surrounding the social and natural sciences. More importantly, it identifies how psychology is locked into Eurocentric assumptions of rigour and empiricism. We use discursive psychology to examine five online discussion board entries detailing medical students’ understanding of psychology. The findings suggest that definitions of psychology subvert the discipline under the guise of bolstering its value in ways that are comparable to colonial methodologies, thereby reconstituting and reinforcing historical notions of othering in social scientific discourses. This research therefore contributes to debates on the current role and position of psychology in South Africa and helps to destabilise dominant scientific discourses within and against which psychology is enacted in the academy. Through a critical interrogation of such hegemony, this study aims to forge new ways of doing and thinking psychology in South Africa.