Brendon Barnes
Biographic Data
| ID | 3817565 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Brendon Barnes |
| GIVEN NAMES | Brendon |
| FAMILY NAME | Barnes |
| SIGNATURE | BARNES B |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Johannesburg |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9911-0135 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 50 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 17 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2001 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Toward a Critical Psychology of Climate Justice
In this article, we discuss what radical political imagination is, why it matters, and how it can contribute to developing a critical psychology of climate justice. Drawing on critical, inter and transdisciplinary approaches, we conceptualize radical political imagination as a collective and political process enabling societal actors to reflect on and (re)envision the world beyond present-day oppressive forces and the dominant social, political, …
Psychology, environment and climate change
We are living through unprecedented global heating,environmental pollution, chemical toxicity, biodiversityloss, extractivism, environmental militarisation, exclusionof marginalised people in decision-making processes,violence directed at environmental defenders and limitsto public engagement, to name a few issues (IPCC, 2022,Menton & Le Billon, 2021, Noyes et al., 2009, Sealey-Huggins,2018). While psychologists are paying increasing attentionto …
Psychology and the climate emergency
status: Published
Racism, climate activism, and the politics of apology
Global heating is associated with historical and contemporary climate racism. Apologies for (climate) racism have the potential to facilitate meaningful discussions about a way forward. However, apologies are complex and can reveal assumptions about privilege. There has been very little work on understanding apologies concerning climate racism. I focus on the apologies received by three Black women activists who (separately) had their images excl…
Psychology and Covid-19
COVID-19 has brought a new set of challenges at a time when poorer nations were struggling with existing burdens. However, the lockdown restrictions aimed at slowing the infection rate has created problems of their own such as increased unemployment, poverty, and mental health problems. While the lockdown approach may be effective for public health, there is concern about the way it is formulated, the empirical basis of some restrictions, and soc…
Politics and activism in the water and sanitation wars in South Africa
This paper focuses on the ways in which activism is undermined in the water and sanitation wars in South Africa. The paper extends previous work that has focused on the politics of water and sanitation in South Africa and is based on an analysis of talk between activists and stakeholders in a television debate. It attempts to make two arguments. First, activists who disrupt powerful discourses of active citizenship struggle to highlight water and…
Child lead poisoning in South Africa
Lead is a toxic heavy metal that is associated with lowered intelligence quotient scores, behavioural problems, and physical health impairments in children. Current consensus is that there is no safe level of child lead exposure and that even low doses of lead can have negative effects. Several reviews conducted in South Africa have revealed the sources and potential risk factors associated with child lead poisoning. However, no South African rev…
Decolonising research methodologies
Decolonising methodologies attempt to bring together a number of critical, indigenous, liberation, and feminist methodologies to strengthen decolonisation research. Decolonising methodologies have potential, but it is important to be aware of possible limitations. I argue that the manner in which decolonising methodologies is located in the paradigm debate is limiting and prescriptive, lacks clarity of the concepts that it draws on, reproduces pr…
Psychology and decolonisation
Class, resistance, and the psychologization of development in South Africa
This paper focuses on the psychologization of development in South Africa, one of the most unequal countries in the world, through a critical analysis of a discussion on a national radio programme about the meaning of Mandela Day. We demonstrate how speakers draw on common sense notions of race, class, and party politics that (re)produce subject positions from within a rights-based interpretive repertoire that emphasizes structural reform and cla…
Critiques of health behaviour change programmes
Critics have raised concerns about health behaviour change programmes in the global South. However, there has been very little reflection about what those critiques are critical of and, in particular, what psychology has come to mean within those critiques. The aim of this article was threefold: to describe existing critiques of behaviour change programmes, to reflect on how psychology has been written into those critiques, and to determine what …
Reflections on South African psychology with Saths Cooper
Saths Cooper, PhD, is an important figure in both South African and international psychology. Based on a two hour interview with Cooper, this article focuses on his experiences with Apartheid-era psychologists, his views on the abuses of psychology past and present, and his views of psychology as president of the International Union of Psychological Science. While we have much to celebrate about the 20 years of Psychological Society of South Afri…
Using Mixed Methods in South African Psychological Research
Mixed methods are becoming increasingly popular in social science research. There has recently been a groundswell of literature suggesting that mixed methods should be viewed as a unique form of social enquiry with its own set of philosophical, methodological and practice guidelines, as opposed to the simple combination of quantitative and qualitative methods in one study. In response to three critiques of South African psychological research, th…
Overcoming fieldwork challenges in urban health research in developing countries
With rapid growth in the global urban population over the next two decades, health will increasingly have an urban bias. The picture of public health is particularly complex in African cities, where rates of urbanisation, poverty and inequity are high. This paper identifies the main data collection problems encountered within a panel study in low‐income areas of Johannesburg, with special emphasis on sampling, access and partnerships. The paper w…
The Hawthorne Effect in community trials in developing countries
The Hawthorne Effect is relatively common in community intervention trials. Yet, very little is known about it in developing countries where poverty may play an important role in how and why people participate in studies. A quasi‐experimental trial with a comparison group designed to evaluate the effectiveness of an indoor air pollution intervention showed evidence of reactivity in rural South Africa. By drawing on post‐trial focus group discussi…
The Politics of Behavioural Change for Environmental Health Promotion in Developing Countries
Behavioural change remains a popular intervention strategy for environmental health promotion in developing countries. This article explores the question of why behavioural change interventions continue to be widely used as an intervention strategy in developing countries and highlights the political implications of this approach. It suggests that framing interventions within a mainstream environmental health science paradigm serves to perpetuate…
The Denial of Racism
Informed by discursive psychology, this study aimed to identify and explicate those rhetorical maneuvers that function to introduce the issue of race into conversations in the presence of an interracial couple (the first two authors) in the "new South Africa" and to negotiate "race talk" in their presence while distancing the speaker from inferences of racism. Over a period of 2 months, conversations of people with whom the first two authors came…
The Denial of Racism
Informed by discursive psychology, this study aimed to identify and explicate those rhetorical maneuvers that function to introduce the issue of race into conversations in the presence of an interracial couple (the first two authors) in the "new South Africa" and to negotiate "race talk" in their presence while distancing the speaker from inferences of racism. Over a period of 2 months, conversations of people with whom the first two authors came…
Decolonising research methodologies
Decolonising methodologies attempt to bring together a number of critical, indigenous, liberation, and feminist methodologies to strengthen decolonisation research. Decolonising methodologies have potential, but it is important to be aware of possible limitations. I argue that the manner in which decolonising methodologies is located in the paradigm debate is limiting and prescriptive, lacks clarity of the concepts that it draws on, reproduces pr…
Psychology and Covid-19
COVID-19 has brought a new set of challenges at a time when poorer nations were struggling with existing burdens. However, the lockdown restrictions aimed at slowing the infection rate has created problems of their own such as increased unemployment, poverty, and mental health problems. While the lockdown approach may be effective for public health, there is concern about the way it is formulated, the empirical basis of some restrictions, and soc…
The Politics of Behavioural Change for Environmental Health Promotion in Developing Countries
Behavioural change remains a popular intervention strategy for environmental health promotion in developing countries. This article explores the question of why behavioural change interventions continue to be widely used as an intervention strategy in developing countries and highlights the political implications of this approach. It suggests that framing interventions within a mainstream environmental health science paradigm serves to perpetuate…
Psychology and decolonisation
Critiques of health behaviour change programmes
Critics have raised concerns about health behaviour change programmes in the global South. However, there has been very little reflection about what those critiques are critical of and, in particular, what psychology has come to mean within those critiques. The aim of this article was threefold: to describe existing critiques of behaviour change programmes, to reflect on how psychology has been written into those critiques, and to determine what …
Overcoming fieldwork challenges in urban health research in developing countries
With rapid growth in the global urban population over the next two decades, health will increasingly have an urban bias. The picture of public health is particularly complex in African cities, where rates of urbanisation, poverty and inequity are high. This paper identifies the main data collection problems encountered within a panel study in low‐income areas of Johannesburg, with special emphasis on sampling, access and partnerships. The paper w…
Racism, climate activism, and the politics of apology
Global heating is associated with historical and contemporary climate racism. Apologies for (climate) racism have the potential to facilitate meaningful discussions about a way forward. However, apologies are complex and can reveal assumptions about privilege. There has been very little work on understanding apologies concerning climate racism. I focus on the apologies received by three Black women activists who (separately) had their images excl…
The Hawthorne Effect in community trials in developing countries
The Hawthorne Effect is relatively common in community intervention trials. Yet, very little is known about it in developing countries where poverty may play an important role in how and why people participate in studies. A quasi‐experimental trial with a comparison group designed to evaluate the effectiveness of an indoor air pollution intervention showed evidence of reactivity in rural South Africa. By drawing on post‐trial focus group discussi…
Psychology and the climate emergency
status: Published
Politics and activism in the water and sanitation wars in South Africa
This paper focuses on the ways in which activism is undermined in the water and sanitation wars in South Africa. The paper extends previous work that has focused on the politics of water and sanitation in South Africa and is based on an analysis of talk between activists and stakeholders in a television debate. It attempts to make two arguments. First, activists who disrupt powerful discourses of active citizenship struggle to highlight water and…
Reflections on South African psychology with Saths Cooper
Saths Cooper, PhD, is an important figure in both South African and international psychology. Based on a two hour interview with Cooper, this article focuses on his experiences with Apartheid-era psychologists, his views on the abuses of psychology past and present, and his views of psychology as president of the International Union of Psychological Science. While we have much to celebrate about the 20 years of Psychological Society of South Afri…
Using Mixed Methods in South African Psychological Research
Mixed methods are becoming increasingly popular in social science research. There has recently been a groundswell of literature suggesting that mixed methods should be viewed as a unique form of social enquiry with its own set of philosophical, methodological and practice guidelines, as opposed to the simple combination of quantitative and qualitative methods in one study. In response to three critiques of South African psychological research, th…
The Denial of Racism
Informed by discursive psychology, this study aimed to identify and explicate those rhetorical maneuvers that function to introduce the issue of race into conversations in the presence of an interracial couple (the first two authors) in the "new South Africa" and to negotiate "race talk" in their presence while distancing the speaker from inferences of racism. Over a period of 2 months, conversations of people with whom the first two authors came…
The Politics of Behavioural Change for Environmental Health Promotion in Developing Countries
Behavioural change remains a popular intervention strategy for environmental health promotion in developing countries. This article explores the question of why behavioural change interventions continue to be widely used as an intervention strategy in developing countries and highlights the political implications of this approach. It suggests that framing interventions within a mainstream environmental health science paradigm serves to perpetuate…
Overcoming fieldwork challenges in urban health research in developing countries
With rapid growth in the global urban population over the next two decades, health will increasingly have an urban bias. The picture of public health is particularly complex in African cities, where rates of urbanisation, poverty and inequity are high. This paper identifies the main data collection problems encountered within a panel study in low‐income areas of Johannesburg, with special emphasis on sampling, access and partnerships. The paper w…
The Hawthorne Effect in community trials in developing countries
The Hawthorne Effect is relatively common in community intervention trials. Yet, very little is known about it in developing countries where poverty may play an important role in how and why people participate in studies. A quasi‐experimental trial with a comparison group designed to evaluate the effectiveness of an indoor air pollution intervention showed evidence of reactivity in rural South Africa. By drawing on post‐trial focus group discussi…
Using Mixed Methods in South African Psychological Research
Mixed methods are becoming increasingly popular in social science research. There has recently been a groundswell of literature suggesting that mixed methods should be viewed as a unique form of social enquiry with its own set of philosophical, methodological and practice guidelines, as opposed to the simple combination of quantitative and qualitative methods in one study. In response to three critiques of South African psychological research, th…
Reflections on South African psychology with Saths Cooper
Saths Cooper, PhD, is an important figure in both South African and international psychology. Based on a two hour interview with Cooper, this article focuses on his experiences with Apartheid-era psychologists, his views on the abuses of psychology past and present, and his views of psychology as president of the International Union of Psychological Science. While we have much to celebrate about the 20 years of Psychological Society of South Afri…
Class, resistance, and the psychologization of development in South Africa
This paper focuses on the psychologization of development in South Africa, one of the most unequal countries in the world, through a critical analysis of a discussion on a national radio programme about the meaning of Mandela Day. We demonstrate how speakers draw on common sense notions of race, class, and party politics that (re)produce subject positions from within a rights-based interpretive repertoire that emphasizes structural reform and cla…
Critiques of health behaviour change programmes
Critics have raised concerns about health behaviour change programmes in the global South. However, there has been very little reflection about what those critiques are critical of and, in particular, what psychology has come to mean within those critiques. The aim of this article was threefold: to describe existing critiques of behaviour change programmes, to reflect on how psychology has been written into those critiques, and to determine what …
Politics and activism in the water and sanitation wars in South Africa
This paper focuses on the ways in which activism is undermined in the water and sanitation wars in South Africa. The paper extends previous work that has focused on the politics of water and sanitation in South Africa and is based on an analysis of talk between activists and stakeholders in a television debate. It attempts to make two arguments. First, activists who disrupt powerful discourses of active citizenship struggle to highlight water and…
Child lead poisoning in South Africa
Lead is a toxic heavy metal that is associated with lowered intelligence quotient scores, behavioural problems, and physical health impairments in children. Current consensus is that there is no safe level of child lead exposure and that even low doses of lead can have negative effects. Several reviews conducted in South Africa have revealed the sources and potential risk factors associated with child lead poisoning. However, no South African rev…
Decolonising research methodologies
Decolonising methodologies attempt to bring together a number of critical, indigenous, liberation, and feminist methodologies to strengthen decolonisation research. Decolonising methodologies have potential, but it is important to be aware of possible limitations. I argue that the manner in which decolonising methodologies is located in the paradigm debate is limiting and prescriptive, lacks clarity of the concepts that it draws on, reproduces pr…
Psychology and decolonisation
Psychology and Covid-19
COVID-19 has brought a new set of challenges at a time when poorer nations were struggling with existing burdens. However, the lockdown restrictions aimed at slowing the infection rate has created problems of their own such as increased unemployment, poverty, and mental health problems. While the lockdown approach may be effective for public health, there is concern about the way it is formulated, the empirical basis of some restrictions, and soc…
Psychology, environment and climate change
We are living through unprecedented global heating,environmental pollution, chemical toxicity, biodiversityloss, extractivism, environmental militarisation, exclusionof marginalised people in decision-making processes,violence directed at environmental defenders and limitsto public engagement, to name a few issues (IPCC, 2022,Menton & Le Billon, 2021, Noyes et al., 2009, Sealey-Huggins,2018). While psychologists are paying increasing attentionto …
Psychology and the climate emergency
status: Published
Racism, climate activism, and the politics of apology
Global heating is associated with historical and contemporary climate racism. Apologies for (climate) racism have the potential to facilitate meaningful discussions about a way forward. However, apologies are complex and can reveal assumptions about privilege. There has been very little work on understanding apologies concerning climate racism. I focus on the apologies received by three Black women activists who (separately) had their images excl…
Toward a Critical Psychology of Climate Justice
In this article, we discuss what radical political imagination is, why it matters, and how it can contribute to developing a critical psychology of climate justice. Drawing on critical, inter and transdisciplinary approaches, we conceptualize radical political imagination as a collective and political process enabling societal actors to reflect on and (re)envision the world beyond present-day oppressive forces and the dominant social, political, …
Psychology (13 works) · Sociology (12 works) · Political science (9 works) · Epistemology (6 works) · Law (6 works) · Politics (6 works) · Social Psychology (6 works) · Economic growth (4 works) · Economics (4 works) · Gender Studies (4 works)