Constructing Identity Spaces for First Nations People

Indigenous psychology as a global movement includes First Nations people who were colonised and live today as minorities amidst European majorities in their homelands. This creates the imperative for a psychology of self-determination and cultural healing. The six articles in this Special Issue (SI) articulate different strands of such a First Nations psychology; they are grounded in a liberation psychology of protest, woven together with less confrontational forms of emancipation involving the construction of alternative identity spaces. The articles employ theories and practice that can be grouped into two themes: (i) psychological resistance and endurance and (ii) social relations for psychological creativity and generativity. Based on (i), two articles in this SI develop a historical trauma paradigm for First Nations people to narrate psychological trauma as the product of intergenerational ‘soul wounds’ inflicted by colonisation, which require empowering collective action. Based on (ii), the remaining articles focus on constructing identity spaces where social relations amongst First Nations people are valued as the source of psychological creativity and generativity. Robust social relations from traditional genealogies to contemporary online communities are used to form identity spaces that validate indigenous identity and support the growth of First Nations languages. Multiple ways of belonging are theorised to link different First Nations people at different stages in identity development. As a dynamic but essentialist view of identity, this body of work can be connected to theorising about dynamism between independent and interdependent self-construals at the individual level, or the social construction of individualism and collectivism at the group level.