Interconnections between Personal and Social Change: towards an Egalitarian Society

Abstract

Gender and colonial relations have been central features of global developments in economics, politics and culture, and have been the focus of an enormous body of writing and research. This book drew on this literature to present an analysis which linked the social conditions of oppression to psychological patterns, and which identified processes and practices which could facilitate liberation. Both gender and colonialism involve social systems in which power differentials are institutionalized so that some individuals have considerable access to power and resources while others have little access to power and resources. The importance of psychological factors in the maintenance of these power differentials — as well, of course, as material and cultural factors — has been acknowledged by the range of writers on gender and colonialism who have been discussed in this book. Those disadvantaged by power differentials are more likely to develop psychological patterns which undermine their capacity to resist domination and reshape power differentials, while those favoured by power differentials are more likely to develop psychological patterns which enhance their capacity to dominate and hence maintain power differentials. There is thus a feedback loop between sociological and psychological patterns which forms a cycle of oppression.