Fanon, Foucault, feminisms: Psychoeducation, theoretical psychology, and political change

Abstract

In this article I juxtapose three critical resources for theoretical psychology: Fanon, Foucault, and feminisms. While the primary focus is on Fanon, some shared methodological assumptions—arising from the influence of Marxism and psychoanalysis on all three—are noted, albeit giving rise to mutual tensions. I then apply this critical frame to a close reading of a clinical case discussed by Fanon in The Wretched of the Earth. As a psychiatrist, but also political revolutionary and psychoeducator, Fanon’s account is read here as indicative of his pedagogical address in motivating for sociopolitical as well as personal change and his therapeutic approach, albeit in need of a feminist re-reading of the gendering of violence, including sexual violence. The paper concludes by suggesting that Fanon’s psychoaffective analysis, first, indicates how resistance and transformation are simultaneously intrapersonal, interpersonal, and sociopolitical, but also that, second, attending to their shifting unstable and relational features works not only to renew and reinvigorate theoretical psychology but also the interventions and perspectives informing psychological and pedagogical activisms.

Beyond the oversocialized conception of the subject in psychology: Desire, conflict, and the problem of social order

“…For those engaged in a fourth family of projects, theoretical psychology is a critical psychology, in the sense of pointedly and explicitly analyzing how psychological theories and practices are intertwined with various forms and manifestations of social and political–economic injustice, oppression, marginalization, and subjection. Critical psychologists also seek to develop emancipatory theories and practices that promote more salutary forms of life for all persons (Burman, 2016; Hodgetts & Griffin, 2015; Parker, 2009; Rutherford, 2018; Teo, 2018). These theorists frequently draw on post-Marxist and critical theory, as well as poststructuralist, feminist, decolonial, and sometimes Lacanian or psychosocial approaches.…”

Frantz Fanon and revolutionary group praxis

“…This Lacanian influence can be traced from Tosquelles, who is said to have carried Lacan’s doctoral thesis on his journey into exile in France over the Pyrenees and, it is also said, circulated photocopied versions of it as essential reading to his interns at St Alban. Moreover, in his account of the dynamics of misrecognition, Fanon refers to Lacan’s earliest papers on the mirror stage, even before Lacan had fully formulated this as a key feature of his own psychoanalytic ‘return to Freud’ (see Burman, 2016a, b). Alongside the Lacanian re-reading of Freud, informed by structural linguistics, where that ‘retaining wall’ is seen to compose the subject even as it also separates the subject from its earlier pre-symbolic experiences, as I suggest elsewhere, Fanon offers a racialized reading of the Freudian/Lacanian account of the layering and (re-)activations of trauma, via Nachträglichkeit , as activated anew in each ethically charged encounter.…”

Affective bodying of mathematics, children and difference: choreographing ‘sad affects’ as affirmative politics in early mathematics teacher education

“…The process of 'becoming teacher' involves 'sad affects' and it is vital for teacher educators to consider how this 'deadening' might be subverted. The transition between theory and practice can cause emotional ruptures, as student-teachers confront conflicting interests in the school context and also clashes within the novice/expert relationship (Zembylas 2003;Burman 2016). A recent review of research on mathematics teacher education (Ruge 2018) notes that prospective teachers face the violence of judgment as they struggle to adapt to these moments of transition.…”