Writings for a Liberation Psychology PDF
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\ WRITINGS for a LIBERATION PSYCHOLOGY IGNACIO MARTJN-BAR6 EDITED BY Adrianne Aron and Shawn Corne With a Foreword by Elliot G. Mishler i Writings a for Liberation Psychology Ignacio Martin-Baro EDITED BY ADRIANNE ARON AND SHAWN CORNE Harvard University Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England — Copyright© 1994bythePresidentandFellowsofHarvardCollege Allrightsreserved PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica Secondprinting, 1996 First HarvardUniversityPresspaperbackedition, 1996 LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData Martin-Bar6,Ignacio. Writingsforaliberationpsychology/IgnacioMartin-Baro; editedbyAdrianneAronandShawnCorne. p. cm. TranslatedfromtheSpanish. Includesbibliographicalreferences. ISBN0-674-96246-X(alk.paper) (cloth) ISBN0-674-96247-8 (pbk.) — 1. Socialpsychology LatinAmerica. 2. SocialPsychology CentralAmerica. 3. Socialpsychology. I. Aron,Adrianne. II. Corne,Shawn. III. Title. HM251.M2864 1994 302'.098—dc20 94-20987 CIP Contents Foreword by Elliot G. Mishler vii Note on the Translation xiii Introduction j I The Psychology ofPolitics and the Politics ofPsychology 13 1 Toward a Liberation Psychology 17 Translated byAdrianneAron 2 The Role ofthe Psychologist 33 Translated byAdrianneAron 3 Power, Politics, and Personality 47 Translated by Phillip Berryman 4 Political Socialization: Two Critical Themes 68 Translated byAdrianneAron 5 The Political Psychology ofWork 84 Translated by CindyForster II War and Trauma 103 6 War and Mental Health 108 Translated byAnne Wallace 7 War and the Psychosocial Trauma ofSalvadoran Children 122 Translated byAnne Wallace 8 Religion as an Instrument ofPsychological Warfare 136 Translated by Tod Sloan 9 The Psychological Value ofViolent Political Repression 151 Translated byAnne Wallace 1 vi / Contents III De-ideologizingReality 169 10 "The People": Toward a Definition ofa Concept 173 Translated byAdrianneAron 1 Public Opinion Research as a De-ideologizing Instrument 186 Translated byJean Carroll andAdrianneAron 12 The Lazy Latino: The Ideological Nature ofLatin 198 American Fatalism Translated by Phillip Berryman Bibliography 221 Complete Works oflgnacio Martin-Bard 221 Works by OtherAuthors 226 Acknowledgments 241 — Foreword ELLIOT G. MISHLER Ignacio Martin-Baro dared speak truth to falsehood. His steadfast affir- mation of fundamental human rights was a dangerous position in the "limit situation" ofwar and state-sponsored terror in El Salvador. He was in the end searched out by violence and assassinated by government sol- diers in November 1989. His "crime" was to align himselfwith the Salvadoran people in their collective resistance to oppression and their struggle for peace and justice. He had embraced the "preferential option for the poor," a central tenet of Liberation Theology. This was his stance as Jesuit, parish priest, and theologian. It was also the centerpoint ofhis work as a psychologist. Adrianne Aron and Shawn Corne, the editors of this collection of his papers in psychology, tell us he was at work just moments before he was killed, "putting finishing touches on a manuscript." Although his work remains unfinished, it stands as a significant statement ofhowpsycholog- ical theory and research might be transformed so as to realize their liber- atorypotential. With a deep sense ofurgency, he calls upon us to develop a new praxis for psychology. We have much to learn from him. This book is part ofhis legacy, a resource for the living to continue with this task. I met him less than a year before his death. I learned from him, was inspired by his example, and mourn him. In assessing his contribution to psychology,Icannotputasidemysenseofpersonalloss.NorcanI respond to his work as ifit were separate and insulated from the rest ofhis life and his death. He would, I believe, view my difficulties with some satis- faction, and perhaps amusement. They acknowledge his criticism andsus- viii / Foreword picion ofdecontextualized, abstract, neutral analyses. He was stubbornly resistant to efforts to understand his work by fragmenting and compart- mentalizing his different spheres ofactivity. A praxis ofcommitment lay at the core and gave unity to the multiplicityofhis endeavors. Well aware — — of differences in assumptions, aims, practices between, for example, serving as a priest and doing research as a psychologist, he nonetheless viewed them as alternative opportunities to act on his basic convictions. His self-assigned task was to discover how each could be transformed and redirected to serve the fundamental aims offreedom and liberation. The clarity, integrity, and unityofhis sense ofpersonal identityand his seriousness ofpurpose are among the strongest impressions I retain from our conversations in early 1989. By then, Martin-Bar6,s contributions to psychologicaltheoryand research were well known and influential in Cen- tral and South America. Although fluent in English, he wrote in Spanish, and his work was less accessible to U.S. psychologists and mental health professionals. A small but growing number, concerned about the mental health consequences ofviolence and war in Latin America and opposed to the U.S. government's support of oppressive regimes, had been learning about his work from his presentations at U.S. and international confer- ences in psychology. Searching for ways to integrate our professional work and our political commitments, several of us in the Boston-Cambridge and San Francisco — — Bay areas mental health workers, teachers, researchers organized sister mental health subcommittees within our respective local chapters of the Committee for Health Rights in Central America (CHRICA). Ouraim was to show solidaritywith, providehelp to, and develop collaborativeprojects with our colleagues in violence-torn countries ofLatin America. — We invited Martin-Bar6 to visit us the Boston-Cambridge commit- — tee during one of his trips to the United States. There was much we wished to learn firsthand about what was happening in El Salvador and the psychological impact ofthe devastating,deadlywar in his country. We also hoped to gain some understanding of how he was able to continue with his work in conditions where he was constantly at risk. He did not act like a man whose life had been threatened repeatedly and whose office had been bombedseveral times. Radiatingenergyand vitality,heexpressed hope for the future within a realistically pessimistic view of the situation — in El Salvador. He deflected our questions about his personal risks they were no more, he implied, and perhaps less than those faced by all Sal- — Foreword / ix vadorans. Showing an unbounded and attentive interest in our lives and our work, he was eager to hear about the current state ofU.S. psychology, about the latest developments in theoryand research, and about our own projects. The deep gravity of his interest was reflected in the seriousness of his fundamental question, to which he always returned: What could he learn that would be helpful to his own task of creating and applying a "psy- chology"in theserviceoftheSalvadoranpeople'sstruggleforfreedomand justice? This is not among the standard questions U.S. psychologists ad- dress to one another. The "liberatory" potential ofour studies is not the typical criterion ofgrant review committees or journal editors. This does — not mean he was uninterested in theories and methods they were pre- ciselywhat he wanted to hear about. But dialogue about them was not an abstract, academic exercise. Rather, it had to do with their broader and deeper meaning, that is, with their potential value for those resisting op- pression and trying to transform the conditions oftheir lives. — Our discussions reflected as do the opening chapters of this book dissatisfaction with the current state ofpsychologicaltheoryand research. Martin-Bar6,s critical perspective, his viewofthe biases and limitationsof standard models, grew out ofhis efforts to understand the subjective ex- perienceoftheoppressedandtraumatizedpeopleofElSalvador.Typically, the motives, behaviors, andpersonalcharacteristicsofoppressedand mar- ginalized people are studied, analyzed, and interpreted from the position of a presumably neutral, external observer. Their own voices are rarely heard, theparticularitiesoftheirlivesandcircumstancesarenotexamined, and theyare pathologizedand objectified. And it became clear to him that characterizations and interpretationsbased on such an approach serve the interests ofthe dominant class. But critique was only the first step. Martin-Bar6 was always oriented toward possibilities, open to what could be, rather than constrained by what was. His firm belief in the possibility of a "liberatory psychology" pressed us to think about how we might transform our practices so that our work would be more relevant to that goal. He had already grappled with this problem, finding ways to pursue this task by reframing standard methods, such as public opinion surveys, and standard concepts in social psychology, such as attitude, identity, ideology, community. Grounding — his approach in a critique ofthe field's "scientistic" framework as ahis- — torical, individualistic, and universalistic he gave these concepts new x / Foreword meaning by re-embedding them within the actual historical and social contexts ofthe Salvadoran people. Psychologyhad been constructed from the top down, reflecting the interests ofthose in power. His intent was to build a psychology from the bottom up, one in which central place would be given to the needs, aims, and experiences ofthe oppressed. The papers selected byAdrianneAron and Shawn Corne show us Mar- tin-Bard at work. Livingamong the Salvadoran people, sharing their risks, — entering into their collective discourse of resistance he realized that the traumas of war and violence could not be fully understood by a theory rooted in the individual psyche, such as the medical model of post-trau- matic stress disorder. Rather, he argued, we must begin with a recognition ofthis trauma as a pervasive and collective experience, rooted in the dis- tortions ofsocial relations and the disruptions ofcommunity life that are the products ofan oppressive, terror-ridden society. He applied this perspective in his studies ofthe impact on children of war and violence, one ofhis deepest and most pervasive concerns at the time ofhis death (Chapter 7). He proposed the concept of"psychosocial trauma" to replace the usual term, "psychic trauma." The latter empha- sizestheacute, unexpected, individualnatureoftraumaandisinapplicable to the chronic, foreseeable, and collective nature oftrauma experiencedby Salvadoran children. His analysis focuses on problems of identity devel- opment within a system of social relations that are aberrant, alienating, and dehumanizing. Children are faced with several "existential" dilemmas about how to position themselves with respect to war: action-flight, identity-alienation, polarization-tearing apart. There are no "creative" solutions to these di- — — lemmas. Each choice and choices must be made marks the individual and isexpressed in particularmodesofpsychologicalfunctioning.The task for psychologists, he concludes, is to do more than treat "post-traumatic stress disorder" as an individual mental health problem. More adequate resolutionsto problemsofidentitydevelopment require efforts directed to restoring stable and trusting social relations and the strengthening ofthe community's capacity for collective action. His analyses ofpolitical attitudes and ideologies, and ofcultural stere- otypes, follow a similar course. Their sources, he argues, are not to be found through examination of personality traits or individual motives. Rather, as in the stereotype of the "Lazy Latino" (Chapter 12) or the
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