Recent research in developmental psychology situates human development in ecological systems. While culturally sensitive variants of ecological systems theory take important strides in identifying how racialization structures the world in which youth develop, limits remain for critical researchers interested in humanity transformation projects. A fundamental error is being made when modern/colonial capitalist Man remains the unquestioned representative of the human. Accordingly, we discuss the case of anti-Blackness in the ecology of Black youth’s development and its origins with the natural slave, arguing that the child–adult trajectory is distorted for Black youth. We argue that anti-Blackness is inextricably tied to capitalism’s historical development and that developmental psychologists concerned with humanization can adopt a decolonial attitude in service of that goal. For developmental psychologists concerned with humanity transformation, we propose a step back from the dominant approach in developmental psychology to better afford an actional stance.
This paper examines key debates in critical historiography, from the work of Hayden White to Walter Benjamin, and thinks through them from the perspective of the critiques of decolonial scholars such as Linda Tuhiwai-Smith, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Uma Narayan, Enrique Dussel, and Lewis Gordon. Through a focus on issues of land and race in the overlapping Spanish/British-U.S. colonial borderlands what emerges is a method to analyze history in a “transcolonial” context. Herein, I propose crucial dimensions of a decolonial historiography.
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