NATIONALISM AND THE BODY POLITIC:
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND THE RISE OF ETHNOCENTRICM
AND XENOPHOBIA
Lene Auestad Ed.
- Publisher : Karnac Books
- Published : January 2014
- Cover : Paperback
- Pages : 304
- Category :
Group Psychotherapy - Category 2 :
Psychoanalysis - Catalogue No : 32947
- ISBN 13 : 9781780491028
- ISBN 10 : 1780491026
This volume aims to question the recent revival of neo-nationalist policies in the light of what unconscious fantasies are involved in these developments. It examines both recent movements of right-wing extremism and the way in which rearticulated neo-ethnic ideas have been adopted by main stream politicians and in main stream public discourse. Politicians from other than the right-wing populist parties have tended to resist specific ways of talking that are considered too extremist, rather than their underlying frame of interpretation. To address the current political developments, the volume stresses the urgency of understanding the fantasies and affects which underpin them.
‘Nationalism and the Body Politic is a fine, timely collection that should be read by anyone concerned by the rise of nationalist and far-right politics in Europe and beyond. Offering numerous insights and frequent provocations to further thought, it brings together an impressive selection of topics and national contexts. Informed by a generous range of theoretical traditions, the book is also a model of open-minded critical dialogue. Above all, the collection is testament to the ongoing relevance of psychoanalytically informed political and social analysis
– perhaps needed now more than ever.’
— Peter Redman, Editor of Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society
‘Psychoanalysis has traditionally eschewed discussing politics and neutrality has been held as the touchstone of its scientific respectability. Nonetheless, this is tantamount to a major gelding of psychoanalytic thought and an undue restriction of its impact on human life, both individual and collective. This fascinating collection of articles on the subject of psychoanalysis and politics, meticulously edited by Lene Auestad, is a major effort to redress this long-standing omission. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested and engaged in psychoanalysis, group analysis, social science,
philosophy, or politics. It is definitely worth your while.’
— Juan Tubert-Oklander, training and supervising analyst at the
Institute of the Mexican Psychoanalytic Association
‘This unique volume presents a selection of contemporary theoretical discussions of the recent revival of neo-nationalism, but reaching beyond the traditional political debates of the topic. The different contributions in the book offer new and fascinating perspectives by exploring the unconscious fantasies of neo-nationalist policies. As Adorno and Marcuse have already shown, xenophobia, racism, ethnocentrism, and prejudice are connected with deep-rooted emotions – with hatred, uncanny desires, anxieties, and overwhelming fears of annihilation. These emotions cannot be fought politically if it is not possible to understand them as expressions of unconscious and unresolved political conflicts within society. Therefore, this book is a most valuable and a much-needed contribution to a scientifically neglected issue that
threatens Europe from within its own societies.’
— Elisabeth Rohr, Professor of Intercultural Education, Philipps-University Marburg, Germany; group analyst; counsellor of group therapy training projects
in Guatemala and Ramallah
‘This book is an eye-opener for all of us. It addresses dramatic changes in the political and socio-economic climate of our time and calls for simultaneous testing of external and psychic reality. If we fail to grasp how external reality, history, and trauma shape our experience of the world, we miss a fundamental momentum
in the process of understanding and elaboration.’
— Judit Szekacs-Weisz, psychoanalyst and co-editor of
Sandor Ferenczi – Ernest Jones: Letters 1911–1933
CONTENTS
Earl Hopper: Series editor’s foreword
Lene Auestad: Introduction
PART I: BODIES AND BOUNDARIES: XENOPHOBIC IMAGININGS
Julia Borossa and Caroline Rooney: Fortress hypochondria: health and safety
Ferenc Erós: Budapest, the capital of Hungarians: rhetoric, images, and symbols of the Hungarian extreme right movements
Lene Auestad: Idealised sameness and orchestrated hatred: extreme and mainstream nationalism in Norway
PART II: CONSTELLATIONS OF NATIONALISM
Szymon Wróbel: Funeral policy: the case of mourning populism in Poland
Earl Hopper: The theory of Incohesion: Aggregation/Massification as the fourth basic assumption in the unconscious life of groups and group-like social systems
Audronė Žukauskaitė: The schizoanalysis of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, or the political between schizophrenia and paranoia
Haakon Flemmen: Fundamentalism, Nazism, and inferiority
PART III: HISTORY, LONGING, IDENTIFICATION
Jonathan Davidoff: The Mexican: phantasy, trauma, and history
Martyn Housden: Psychoanalysis and peace: Erich Fromm on history, politics, and the nation
Svein Tjelta: The making of the isotype character in the panoptic system and its relation to globalised nationalism
PART IV: THE ‘I’ AND MOURNING
Calum Neill: The evil I retreat from in myself: nationalism and das Ding
Margarita Palacios: Between fantasy and melancholia: lack, otherness, and violence
APPENDIX
Steffen Krüger: Introducing Psychoanalysis and Politics: a conversation with Lene Auestad and Jonathan Davidoff
REVIEWS
Review by Svein Haugsgjerd in Matrix 31 (2) 2014 (in Norwegian, text not on the web)
Review by Louis Rothschild in Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society 20, 421-423, December 2015