PSYCHOLOGY AS A TECHNIQUE OF SUBJECTIFICATION

Abstract

A conception of psychology is tentatively proposed which aims to displace epistemological questions (what kind of science it is, if it is a science) and theoretical and methodological questions (what its object and its method should be). Instead, a perspective is adopted that is based on Foucauldian genealogy and the anthropology of science by authors such as Bruno Latour. An attempt is made to create distance with respect to so-called critical psychology. It is argued that psychology matters more for what it does than for what it says (although saying is also doing) and that it functions mainly as a practice of subjectivation. This paper ends by briefly reviewing a number of works that attempt to show this functioning in specific cases.

Keywords

• Ethnopsychology
• Genealogy
• Subjectivity.