Open Access

ARTICLE

From European theory to African colonial reality: Exploration of the psychological and philosophical foundations of Frantz Fanon’s anti-colonial thought

Xiaoyun Kang¹, Ruijing Yang^2,*
1 College of Chinese Language and Literature, Northwest Normal University, Lanzhou, China
2 Institute of Dunhuang Studies, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China
* Corresponding Author: Ruijing Yang. Email:

Journal of Psychology in Africa https://doi.org/10.32604/jpa.2026.077424

Received 09 December 2025; Accepted 19 May 2026; Published online 18 September 2026

Abstract

Reflective thinking is embedded in the material conditions of living. Yet few studies have explored this relationship in relation to leading thought leaders with global impact. Frantz Fanon is one such eminent thought leader, with a growing body of scholarship addressing his key propositions. This conceptual study, situated within the fields of African psychology, critical psychology, and decolonial psychology, investigating the psychological and philosophical underpinnings of Fanon’s anti-colonial thought. It analyses Michel Foucault’s examination of modern Western subjectivity to offer a new interpretation of Fanon’s critique of Hegelian dialectics and Marxist historical materialism. From these analyses, we find that Fanon made the unique contribution of exposing the epistemological boundaries of the modern subject—a subject that at once acts as an empirical object and as the transcendental precondition for knowledge. Based on Foucault’s concept of the “transcendental-empirical couplet,” this study shows how colonial governance systematically blocks the formation of the subject presupposed by Hegelian recognition and Marxist historical agency. Through an analysis of Fanon’s engagements with dialectics, Marxism, and psychopolitics, this study makes the unique contribution of repositioning the colonial experience that Fanon emphasizes as a privileged site for revealing the historicity and raciality of the Western subject. We conclude that Fanon’s philosophy of “man” was one of the most valuable aspects of his intellectual heritage.

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Keywords

Frantz Fanon; Michel Foucault; colonial subjectivity; Hegel–Marxian dialectics; psychopolitics

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