Refraining Internalized Oppression and Internalized Domination: From the Psychological to the Sociocultural

This article presents a reinterpretation of “internalized oppression” and “internalized domination,” not as internal, psychological qualities or characteristics, but rather as sociocultural phenomena—that is, as forms of “mediated action.” Mediated action entails two central elements: (1) an agent, the person who is doing the acting, and (2) cultural tools (or “mediational means”), the tools, means, or instruments appropriated from the culture and used by the agent to accomplish a given action. Such a reframing leads to a new conception of appropriated oppression and appropriated domination/ privilege, both of which have significant implications for the practice of critical pedagogy in general, and what has come to be called antioppressive education in particular.