What kind of critical (or feminist or Marxist or other type of oppositional) psychologists are they who work in Africa, but think of critical psychology as fundamentally opposed to African psychology? This is the question I was confronted with when I re-read an article by three highly regarded African critical psychologists, Desmond Painter, Peace Kiguwa and Werner Bohmke. In 2013, Painter and his colleagues published a wellwritten article, ‘Contexts and continuities of critique: Reflections on the current state of critical psychology in South Africa’ in the journal Annual Review of Critical Psychology. I say ‘re-read’, because I had read the article once before, prior to realising what the problem was that they were not seeing. And, of course, an African-centred consciousness about how a Euroamericancentred world makes us dizzy about our situatedness in Africa takes time to develop.

In their article, Painter, Kiguwa and Bohmke are very critical of African psychology because, among other things, they rightly say, it does not question ‘its status as – and desire to be – psychology’ (Painter et al. 2013: 856). When African critical psychologists like Painter, Kiguwa and Bohmke are critical of African psychology because it does not question its desire to be psychology, they are not being critical of all of African psychology, only of a certain orientation. They are not being critical of a Euroamerican psychological orientation in Africa. They are not being critical of psychological and psychoanalytical African psychology. They are not being critical of critical or structural African psychology. They are being critical of value-based or cultural African psychology. This is what makes them oppose African psychology as a whole to critical psychology, and produce a sometimes curiously Africa-blind critical psychology.

This is what the three scholars say in their article: