Subordinated Knowledge as a Tool for Creative Maladjustment and Resistance to Racial Oppression

Abstract

Abstract In his address to the APA, King (1968) suggested that critical consciousness about racism, based on realities of African American experience, could serve as a tool for creative maladjustment : resistance to collective delusions and refusal to assimilate to pathological norms of a racist society. In this article, we summarize a program of research that applies decolonial perspectives of cultural psychology and a focus on the intentionality of everyday worlds to the topic of creative maladjustment. In particular, we consider the potential of critical historical consciousness, rooted in the experience of racially subordinated communities, as a resource for perception of injustice and support for policies designed to restore social justice. Hegemonic knowledge institutions (including psychological science) have evolved via cultural selection to protect White comfort and to promote White ignorance. An anti‐racist response requires investment in knowledge forms that challenge White delusions and afford creative maladjustment to systems of oppression—a task that King highlighted for psychologists more than 50 years ago.