Beyond the Pretty White Affair: Training Africa/n-centring Psychologists for the Future
The PsySSA Decolonising Psychology Division invites psychologists, social scientists, students and other interested colleagues to a CPD-accredited webinar with Associate Professor Sipho Dlamini, author of Beyond the Pretty White Affair: Training Africa/n-centring Psychologists for the Future.
Date: Monday, 21 September 2026
Time: 18:00–20:00
Format: Online
CPD: 2 General Points
About the Webinar
What would it mean to train psychologists who centre African realities, knowledge systems and lived experiences?
This webinar will critically engage with the Westernised foundations of psychology training in Africa and consider the need to reimagine how psychologists are educated, prepared and positioned to practise within African contexts. Drawing on the arguments developed in Beyond the Pretty White Affair, the conversation will examine the continued privileging of Euro-American epistemologies and the marginalisation of Black lifeworlds and African ways of knowing.
The discussion will explore key dimensions of professional psychology training, including selection, curriculum, racialised, gendered and classed dynamics, as well as broader questions about transformation within the profession. It will also consider the possibilities of an Africa/n-centring training paradigm that enables psychology to think, teach and practise in ways that meaningfully centre Africa and Africans.
Designed for psychologists and social scientists across disciplines, the webinar aims to stimulate critical reflection on the future of psychology training and practice in Africa and the pressing need to develop approaches that are responsive to the continent’s histories, contexts and communities.
Join the PsySSA Decolonising Psychology Division for an important conversation on reimagining the training of psychologists and advancing an Africa/n-centring psychology for the future.
Presenters:
Prof Sipho Dlamini
Main Speaker
Sipho Dlamini is an Associate Professor at the University of Johannesburg’s Department of Psychology. He is also registered as a counselling psychologist. A/Prof. Dlamini serves on the board for the journal Psychology in Society as an associate editor, he is also an associate editor for the journal Frontiers in Education, under the section Psychology in Education. A/Prof. Dlamini has served as the deputy head of department at the University of Johannesburg’s Department of Psychology from 2022 to 2023. He has also served on the South African Association of Counselling Psychologists (SAACP), as an additional member, a vice-chair, and chair of the division. He was also on the executive of the Psychological Society of South Africa (PsySSA) as an additional member from 2020 to 2022. His research interests include the training of psychologists, the history and philosophy of psychology, community psychology, and critical race theories intersecting in the area of Africa(n)-centred psychologies. A/Prof. Dlamini is the authored and co-authored multiple journal articles and book chapters in these areas, including the book Beyond the Pretty White Affair: Training Africa-centering Psychologists for the Future, published by UNISA Press.
Dr Sibusiso Maseko
Facilitator
Dr. Sibusiso Maseko is a lecturer at the University of South Africa’s department of psychology. He earned his doctorate degree in Psychology from the University of KwaZulu-Natal in 2023. Drawing on South Africa’s history of settler colonialism, his broad research agenda focuses on how White South Africans assert themselves as natives to maintain a sense of territorial entitlement. His current research examines how White South Africans mobilize autochthony and collective nostalgia to defend their ownership of settler colonial territory and to maintain racial inequality.
Ms Rejane Williams
Speaker- Chair of Decolonising Psychology Division
Siphelele Nguse
Respondent
Siphelele Nguse is a clinical psychologist and PhD candidate at Stellenbosch University. His practice and scholarly work intersects psychology and politics – primarily focusing on decolonial and critical psychology; health inequity, men and masculinity, and mental health literacy. He trained at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and Fort Napier Hospital.