PSY-EXPERTISE & DEVELOPMENT 

The ‘psy’ (the psyche, the mind, mental health, subjective wellbeing, cognition, subjectivity, mentality, and more) is fast becoming a specific frontier of international development. This marks the further individualisation and psychologisation of poverty. Furthermore, when situated within wider power dynamics, subjugation and global capital, the psychological domain is targeted for instrumental purposes by political and economic actors, having neo-colonial implications. This area of research takes up these concerns and critically examines the use of psychological expertise within development policy and practice.

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• Klein, E. Developing Minds: Psychology, Neoliberalism, Power, Routledge, Oxford (2017). https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Developing_Minds.html?id=owoxDQAAQBAJ&source=kp_book_description&redir_esc=y, (Research Monograph)

• Klein, E. “The World Bank on Mind, Behaviour and Society”, Development and Change, 48(3): 481–501 (2017), https://doi.org/10.1111/dech.12308, (Peer Reviewed Research Journal Article).

• Klein E. and Mills, C., “Psy-Expertise, therapeutic culture and the new politics of the personal in development”, Third World Quarterly, 38(9):1990-2008 (2017),https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2017.1319277, (Peer Reviewed Research Journal Article).

• Klein, E., and Ballon, P. “Rethinking Measures of Psychological Agency: A study on the urban fringe of Bamako”, Journal of Development Studies (Special Issue), 54 (8): 1284-1302 (2017), https://doi.org/10.1080/00220388.2017.1414187 (Peer Reviewed Research Journal Article).