Remembering the Radical Roots of Liberation Psychology: Salvadoran Educators, Popular Student Movements, & Ignacio Martín-Baró’s Social Psychology

Abstract

This paper embraces the radical history of liberation psychology. First, the author historicizes the life and legacy of the Jesuit priest and liberation psychologist Ignacio “Nacho” Martín-Baró within the context of the liberation theology movement. Then, grounded on historical memory recovery, the author highlights the vital role that psychology students played in pioneering a liberation psychology praxis decades before Martín-Baró articulated a liberation-oriented social psychology that ultimately became known as liberation psychology.

The author employs primary archival research, autoethnography, and a hybrid approach that combines historical nonfiction and fiction. Notably, this article translates some of Ignacio Martín-Baró’s work, initially published in Spanish, to amplify his contributions to the psychosocial understanding of power, ideology, war, violence, trauma, and mental health. University students and Martín-Baró have offered us a unique and much-needed psychology that is rooted in anti-oppressive popular organizing and activist research. Through a practice of embodied historical memory, the author argues that liberation psychology has a radical legacy that must not be forgotten, especially amid ongoing settler-colonial violence. Otherwise, we risk devaluing and de-radicalizing its powerful history, vision, and potential.

In Progress. Joanna Beltrán Girón © 2025