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BPS updates, History and philosophy

Viva Nacho! Liberating psychology in Latin America

Mark Burton on the contribution of Ignacio Martín-Baró and his followers.

18 October 2004

A university campus, 16 November 1989. Eight people lie dead – six academic staff, their housekeeper and her daughter, all victims of an elite battalion of the El Salvador army, trained and funded by the United States government. Among them was the leading social psychologist from Latin America, Ignacio Martín-Baró (see Harris, 1990), who was also a Jesuit priest and vice-rector of the University of Central America. Known familiarly as Father Nacho, Martín-Baró had established a distinctive approach to psychology that is having an increasing influence in both Latin America and beyond.

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