In my thinking, a number of routes into African psychology exist. One way leads towards the idea of African psychology restricted to Africans. Another begins with but extends beyond Africa and Africans.

The fundamental question posed about Africa and psychology is what frames the meaning and horizon of African psychology. Granted that this is an oversimplification, there are two broad ways to ask questions about African psychology.

The first line of questions focuses on actors, subjects and identities – who is the student, teacher, author, reader, study subject, therapist, or client? In this particular case we might ask the question: is African psychology a psychology that focuses on Africans? Some researchers, teachers and therapists may be inclined towards an African psychology of this kind. However, such an approach could also limit the potential and future of African psychology as a global enterprise. That is to say, when such identity-related questions are used to frame African psychology, African psychology often appears as an esoteric branch of psychology, perhaps even an area of work outside of psychology. It is on the basis of such identitarian questions that African psychology gets to be defined as studies and therapies (of X, whatever X is) on or for (and sometimes, although slightly different, by) Africans. All the same, although there are researchers, teachers and therapists who may prefer African psychology thus defined, it is but one way to conceive of the work.

The second line of questions concerns standpoints, methods and applications – what the topics of interest are, how to approach them, and what interpretations can be derived from the data. From this angle we might ask: how might we undertake research or see therapeutic work from an African psychological perspective? This places African psychology within psychology, even if in an oppositional stance towards the mainstream. Such a question seems to lead towards a more variegated African psychology. The definition suggested by these questions is this: African psychology refers to ways of situating oneself in the field of psychology in relation to and from Africa.