Palgrave Studies in the Theory and History of Psychology
Series Editor: Jack Martin, Burnaby Mouthain Endowed Professor of Psychology, Simon Fraser University, Canada
This book represents the first attempt to historicise and theorise appeals for relevance´ in psychology. It argues that the persistence of questions about the relevance´ of psychology derives from the discipline´s terminal inability to define its subject matter, its reliance on a socially disinterested science to underwrite its knowledge claims, and its consequent failure to address itself to the needs of a rapidly changing world.
The chapters go on to consider the relevance´ debate within South African psychology, by critically analysing discourse of forty-five presidential, keynote and opening addresses delivered at annual national psychology congresses between 1950 and 2011, and observes how appeals for relevance´ were advanced by reactionary, progressive and radical psychologists alike.
The book presents, moreover, the provocative thesis that the revolutionary quest for social relevance´ that began in the 1960s has been supplanted by an ethic of market relevance´ that threatens to isolate the discipline still further from the anxieties of broader society. With powerful interest groups continuing to co-opt psychologists without relent, this is a development that only psychologists of conscience can arrest.
