Psychoanalysis and its colonial discontents: rethinking psychoanalytic theory in postcolonial studies
| dc.contributor.author | Greedharry, Mrinalini | |
| dc.contributor.supervisor | Cobley, Evelyn | |
| dc.contributor.supervisor | Vibert, Elizabeth | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2025-03-14T19:39:37Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2025-03-14T19:39:37Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 1999 | |
| dc.degree.department | Department of English | |
| dc.description.abstract | This study looks at the role psychoanalytic theory has in colonial discourse analysis and postcolonial theory, especially with regard to the recent psychoanalytic turn in postcolonial studies. Through a close reading of Homi Bhabha's "The Other Question: stereotype, discrimination and racial discourse" the thesis outlines some of the problems with a straightforward application of psychoanalytic structures to colonial analyses. In particular, by passing over the racial logic and racialising language of psychoanalysis Bhabha reproduces the theory as a 'truth' in his text. Following Michel Foucault, I argue that psychoanalysis is itself implicated in racial and colonial discourses. Given its implication in racial discourse, I argue that an attempt to understand how psychoanalysis produces and distributes racial knowledge and racialising practices might be more productive than either using it as a theory without racial implications, or discarding psychoanalytic theory altogether. Accordingly, I discuss some recent responses and solutions to the question of psychoanalysis and race by Ann Pellegrini, Anne McClintock and John Brenkman. While these solutions are valuable, especially as they intervene in the practice of psychoanalysis itself, they do not go far enough in examining how psychoanalysis actually contributes to and intervenes in racialised and racialising discourses such as colonial discourses. The paper concludes with some specific suggestions for how analysts and historians of colonialism might use recent developments in colonial history and colonial research agendas, especially as articulated by Ann Stoler, as starting points for understanding how psychoanalysis operates as a racial and colonial form of knowledge. | |
| dc.description.scholarlevel | Graduate | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/1828/21436 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | |
| dc.rights | Available to the World Wide Web | |
| dc.title | Psychoanalysis and its colonial discontents: rethinking psychoanalytic theory in postcolonial studies | |
| dc.type | Thesis |