Abstract
This introduction to the special issue on the history of power forwards the anthropological concept of "purification" as a means of drawing together disparate histories of psychology that invoke notions of power. Drawing on the work of Mary Douglas, Bruno Latour, Michel Foucault, and Donna Haraway, I argue for a history of psychology that links the carving up of people up into their properly natural and enculturated parts with keeping people in their place, the purification of interpretation by scientific representation, the maintenance of the body politic of the discipline, and the role of psychology in making up power in modern nation states.