| ID | 134636 |
| Title Proper | Psychoanalysis and development |
| Other Title Information | an introduction |
| Language | ENG |
| Author | Kapoor, Ilan |
| Summary / Abstract (Note) | International development has tended to ignore – or, tellingly, repress – human/social passions. Yet the theory and practice of development is replete with disavowed memories (racism, (neo)colonialism, gender discrimination) and traumatic prohibitions (economic recession, poverty), which show up in dreams and fantasies (the exoticised Third World, structural adjustment as universal panacea), obsessions (economic growth, ‘wars’ against poverty or terror), or stereotypes (denigration, infantilisation, sexualisation or feminisation of the Third World Other). Psychoanalysis aims precisely at helping tease out these passions, that is, the unconscious fantasies and desires embedded in development. It helps explain the gap between development’s scientific commitments (eg belief in progress, neutrality, objectivity, rationality) and its irrational practices (eg the seductive draw of narrow capitalistic growth, the fatal pull to aggressive racism, or the blind conformity to bureaucratic procedures or ethnic/religious identities). It helps us understand that development is not only a socioeconomic construction, but also an ideological construction intent on effacing its various internal traumas and contradictions – for example, the way in which development is “naturally” equated with neoliberal growth and liberal democracy, concealing the reality of rapacious capitalism, growing global inequalities and unevenness, and diminishing avenues for political contestation. The five articles in this sub-theme for Third World Quarterly aim to examine the intersection of psychoanalysis and development, applying in particular (although not exclusively), a Lacanian/Žižekian lens to a range of development issues. |
| `In' analytical Note | Third World Quarterly Vol.35, No.7; 2014: p.1117-1119 |
| Journal Source | Third World Quarterly Vol: 35 No 7 |
| Standard Number | Poverty |