Profile
Deanne M. Bell
Birth:
1964
Training Location(s):
PhD, Pacifica Graduate Institute (2011)
MA, Pacifica Graduate Institute (2009)
BA, Florida International University (1987)
Primary Affiliation(s):
University of Birmingham (2024–Present)
Nottingham Trent University (2019–2023)
University of East London (2017–2019)
Other Media:
Deanne Bell at the University of Birmingham
Decolonial Research Collaborative, Nottingham Trent University
Career Focus:
Decoloniality; critical psychology; psychosocial theory; (re)humanizing race
Biography
Dr. Deanne Bell was born in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1964. Her undergraduate education was in finance and international business, not psychology. Her father, a lawyer and politician in Jamaica, was her first influence in helping her to see “people’s full rights regardless of any of the classifications that we think about, or any of the ways that we categorize people in modern time”. Following her father’s ideals, she began to grapple with various forms of discrimination, particularly around race and class, that were present in her life in Jamaica and abroad. This understanding of marginalization led her to want to understand the experiences of racial and gender oppression and the ongoing effects of colonialism that many people face in different contexts.
Her first orientation to psychology, however, started through her love for tennis, which she played competitively in Jamaica. Through this experience she noticed that there was a lack of sports psychologists in the country, which has famously produced many high-performing athletes. She decided to study to become a sports psychologist. She noticed that many athletes would “bottom out”, or not be able to explore their difficulties deeply enough, using traditional counselling techniques. This sparked an interest in learning more about inner life, which, combined with her concerns about marginalization and oppression, led her to the unique graduate program at Pacifica Graduate Institute. There, she studied depth psychology, a field which centers the exploration of inner psychological life rather than the rational mind. She went on to complete her Masters and PhD at Pacifica in depth psychology with an emphasis on liberation psychology, ecopsychology, and community psychology.
In her research Dr. Bell uses psychology, feminism and decolonial theories/practices as “tools to answer questions.” She has used psychology to explore the subjective reality of (post)colonialism in Jamaica, reimagined what academic institutions may look like through a decolonial lens, and advocated for new tools for subjects of former colonies to examine their own lives as well as undo the psychological harms of colonialism. For example, in her paper A
Black-Archipelago Anticolonial Canon Speaks Psychology (2024), she draws on the anticolonial canon of thinkers including Frantz Fanon, Aimé and Suzanne Césaire, and Sylvia Wynter to examine relationships between Euromodernity, alienation, race, and consciousness.
Dr. Bell also uses multiple forms of media expression in her work such as films and art installations. For example, in collaboration with an anthropologist and musician/composer she produced an experimental documentary Four days in May: Kingston 2010. In this powerful film, she documented the stories of Tivoli Gardens community members who experienced military and police violence when they refused to give in to requests for a wanted member of the community to be extradited to the United States. In the resulting standoff with military and police forces, 75 civilian community members were killed. The motivation for the film came from speaking to members of the community and bearing witness to the psychological trauma they experienced. She says art is an important tool through which we can analyse and express deeper psychological realities, otherwise unavailable to us through more rational thought/expression.
Dr. Bell has also worked to challenge the notion of what the classroom should look like and has instead invited us to reimagine what the classroom, and academic spaces in general, could look like. She considers the classroom a “contested space” - it is a space where people of diverse identities/backgrounds interact. While most academic institutions in liberal societies attempt to use a colour-blind approach, which can minimize or hide this diversity, Dr. Bell highlights that this can cause some voices and experiences to be silenced or ignored while others are privileged. Putting this observation into action she says her pedagogy is more focused on lifelong learning outcomes rather than grades: “What I want students to leave with is an experience of learning ideas and learning people with whom they can continue to read and think for the rest of their lives.” She also uses what she calls interactive lecturing, where she encourages her students to question what they are learning and to think about the practical applications of the concepts they are being taught. In recognition of her pedagogical expertise, she worked with Nottingham Trent University to decolonize their curriculum in the wake of the 2020 murder of George Floyd.
Considering the road ahead for the discipline, her hope is that psychology can be used to develop the voices of those who may not have power, physically or materially, to effect change in the world. She credits feminist psychology for bringing light to the oppression of women and the psychological realities of being a woman in modern times. She hopes that feminist psychology can move forward with the progress they have already made to tackle the conditions of modernity and ultimately free those impacted by its constraints. When asked what advice she would give to future psychologists, she says that the university should be used as a place to study radical thought and convene with others interested in it. She cautions new students not to expect the university to “soothe your soul” but rather use it as a tool to unsettle and expand one’s mind.
Dr. Bell’s career stands as both example of her principles and a call to action. Grounded in feminist and decolonial perspectives, her work demonstrates how psychology, when paired with creativity and deep, critical analysis of consciousness, can be a tool to open space for new ways of living, learning, and imagining. She reminds us that “When has freedom, when has liberation, when has emancipation come about historically? It’s actually when people have imagined it”. This powerful reminder is a challenge she leaves with each of us, as we imagine a world beyond the constraints of coloniality.
By Aaron Peniston (2025)
To cite this article, see Credits
Selected Works
Bell D. (2025, in press). Race Versus the Human. American Psychologist.
Bell, D. (2025). A Black-Archipelago Anticolonial Canon Speaks Psychology. Review of General Psychology. 29(1), 23-32.
Bell, D. (2022). Occupy the classroom radically. Third World Quarterly. 43(8), 2063-2074.
Bell, D., Canham, H., Dutta, U. & Fernandez, J. S. (2019). Retrospective autoethnographies: A call for decolonial imaginings for the new university. Qualitative Inquiry, 26(7), 849-859.
Bell, D. (2016). Retrieving psychosocial signs of structural violence in postcolonial Jamaica. Community Psychology in Global Perspective. 1(2), 144-126.
Wedderburn, J. “Gabu,” Thomas, D., & Bell, D. (Directors, producers). (2018). 4 Days in May: Kingston 2010. [Film] Third World Newsreel.
Photo Gallery
Deanne M. Bell
Birth:
1964
Training Location(s):
PhD, Pacifica Graduate Institute (2011)
MA, Pacifica Graduate Institute (2009)
BA, Florida International University (1987)
Primary Affiliation(s):
University of Birmingham (2024–Present)
Nottingham Trent University (2019–2023)
University of East London (2017–2019)
Other Media:
Deanne Bell at the University of Birmingham
Decolonial Research Collaborative, Nottingham Trent University
Career Focus:
Decoloniality; critical psychology; psychosocial theory; (re)humanizing race
Biography
Dr. Deanne Bell was born in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1964. Her undergraduate education was in finance and international business, not psychology. Her father, a lawyer and politician in Jamaica, was her first influence in helping her to see “people’s full rights regardless of any of the classifications that we think about, or any of the ways that we categorize people in modern time”. Following her father’s ideals, she began to grapple with various forms of discrimination, particularly around race and class, that were present in her life in Jamaica and abroad. This understanding of marginalization led her to want to understand the experiences of racial and gender oppression and the ongoing effects of colonialism that many people face in different contexts.
Her first orientation to psychology, however, started through her love for tennis, which she played competitively in Jamaica. Through this experience she noticed that there was a lack of sports psychologists in the country, which has famously produced many high-performing athletes. She decided to study to become a sports psychologist. She noticed that many athletes would “bottom out”, or not be able to explore their difficulties deeply enough, using traditional counselling techniques. This sparked an interest in learning more about inner life, which, combined with her concerns about marginalization and oppression, led her to the unique graduate program at Pacifica Graduate Institute. There, she studied depth psychology, a field which centers the exploration of inner psychological life rather than the rational mind. She went on to complete her Masters and PhD at Pacifica in depth psychology with an emphasis on liberation psychology, ecopsychology, and community psychology.
In her research Dr. Bell uses psychology, feminism and decolonial theories/practices as “tools to answer questions.” She has used psychology to explore the subjective reality of (post)colonialism in Jamaica, reimagined what academic institutions may look like through a decolonial lens, and advocated for new tools for subjects of former colonies to examine their own lives as well as undo the psychological harms of colonialism. For example, in her paper A Black-Archipelago Anticolonial Canon Speaks Psychology (2024), she draws on the anticolonial canon of thinkers including Frantz Fanon, Aimé and Suzanne Césaire, and Sylvia Wynter to examine relationships between Euromodernity, alienation, race, and consciousness.
Dr. Bell also uses multiple forms of media expression in her work such as films and art installations. For example, in collaboration with an anthropologist and musician/composer she produced an experimental documentary Four days in May: Kingston 2010. In this powerful film, she documented the stories of Tivoli Gardens community members who experienced military and police violence when they refused to give in to requests for a wanted member of the community to be extradited to the United States. In the resulting standoff with military and police forces, 75 civilian community members were killed. The motivation for the film came from speaking to members of the community and bearing witness to the psychological trauma they experienced. She says art is an important tool through which we can analyse and express deeper psychological realities, otherwise unavailable to us through more rational thought/expression.
Dr. Bell has also worked to challenge the notion of what the classroom should look like and has instead invited us to reimagine what the classroom, and academic spaces in general, could look like. She considers the classroom a “contested space” - it is a space where people of diverse identities/backgrounds interact. While most academic institutions in liberal societies attempt to use a colour-blind approach, which can minimize or hide this diversity, Dr. Bell highlights that this can cause some voices and experiences to be silenced or ignored while others are privileged. Putting this observation into action she says her pedagogy is more focused on lifelong learning outcomes rather than grades: “What I want students to leave with is an experience of learning ideas and learning people with whom they can continue to read and think for the rest of their lives.” She also uses what she calls interactive lecturing, where she encourages her students to question what they are learning and to think about the practical applications of the concepts they are being taught. In recognition of her pedagogical expertise, she worked with Nottingham Trent University to decolonize their curriculum in the wake of the 2020 murder of George Floyd.
Considering the road ahead for the discipline, her hope is that psychology can be used to develop the voices of those who may not have power, physically or materially, to effect change in the world. She credits feminist psychology for bringing light to the oppression of women and the psychological realities of being a woman in modern times. She hopes that feminist psychology can move forward with the progress they have already made to tackle the conditions of modernity and ultimately free those impacted by its constraints. When asked what advice she would give to future psychologists, she says that the university should be used as a place to study radical thought and convene with others interested in it. She cautions new students not to expect the university to “soothe your soul” but rather use it as a tool to unsettle and expand one’s mind.
Dr. Bell’s career stands as both example of her principles and a call to action. Grounded in feminist and decolonial perspectives, her work demonstrates how psychology, when paired with creativity and deep, critical analysis of consciousness, can be a tool to open space for new ways of living, learning, and imagining. She reminds us that “When has freedom, when has liberation, when has emancipation come about historically? It’s actually when people have imagined it”. This powerful reminder is a challenge she leaves with each of us, as we imagine a world beyond the constraints of coloniality.
By Aaron Peniston (2025)
To cite this article, see Credits
Selected Works
Bell D. (2025, in press). Race Versus the Human. American Psychologist.
Bell, D. (2025). A Black-Archipelago Anticolonial Canon Speaks Psychology. Review of General Psychology. 29(1), 23-32.
Bell, D. (2022). Occupy the classroom radically. Third World Quarterly. 43(8), 2063-2074.
Bell, D., Canham, H., Dutta, U. & Fernandez, J. S. (2019). Retrospective autoethnographies: A call for decolonial imaginings for the new university. Qualitative Inquiry, 26(7), 849-859.
Bell, D. (2016). Retrieving psychosocial signs of structural violence in postcolonial Jamaica. Community Psychology in Global Perspective. 1(2), 144-126.
Wedderburn, J. “Gabu,” Thomas, D., & Bell, D. (Directors, producers). (2018). 4 Days in May: Kingston 2010. [Film] Third World Newsreel.