Unsettling orthodoxy via epistemological jailbreak: Rethinking childhood, psychology, and wellbeing from the Caribbean

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article offers a critical overview of the coloniality of the broad fields of psychology and global mental health, as well as advocates anti-colonial approaches to childhood studies and wellness that move beyond Western frameworks and Eurocentric models. More specifically, by drawing upon transformative approaches to wellbeing being practiced by mental health promoters from the Caribbean who are committed to decolonisation, we propose, via the notion of ‘epistemological jailbreak,’ that researchers commit to more inclusive, emancipatory, and praxis-driven research agendas that decentre the hegemony of liberal worldviews and disrupt the homogenising tendencies of conventional knowledge production. To do so, we first provide a brief summary of the ways in which colonial power has shaped global health before contextualising Caribbean realities and castling light on the neuro- and Eurocentrism of childhood development. Next, we detail the multifaceted intricacies and complexities that characterise childhood throughout the Caribbean before concluding with examples of how researchers in the region and beyond are advancing both pluralistic notions and historical-material analyses of wellbeing through anti-colonial and Indigenous approaches to childhood development, cultural therapy, and community health.