The extimacy of space

Bibliographic Data

ID3977229
AuthorsPaul Kingsbury (0000-0002-5160-060X, Simon Fraser University, corresponding author)
Year2007
Volume8
Issue2
Pages235-258
Publication date2007-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial & Cultural Geography (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1464-9365 • E-ISSN: 1470-1197
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14649360701360196
OpenAlexW2039673792
LanguageEN
Citations received52
References cited24

Jacques Lacan coined the neologism 'extimacy' (extimité) in order to theorize two interrelated modes of psychical apprehension: first, how our most intimate feelings can be extremely strange and Other to us. Second, how our feelings can be radically externalized on to objects without losing their sincerity and intensity. Attending to the socio-spatial dimensions of extimacy, this paper provides insight into the importance of topology in Lacan's work. In so doing, the paper challenges the enduring doxa in geography that Lacanian theories ultimately devalue the intricacies and liveliness of space. To substantiate this claim, I explore the extimacy of the most popular vehicle accessory in the USA since the 1980s' 'Baby on Board' signs: the 'ribbon magnet'. Specifically, I elaborate the extimate contours of two ribbon magnet slogans, 'Half Of My Heart Is In Iraq' and 'I Support More Troops Than You'. Affirming a recent critique that social and cultural geographers have 'tamed' psychoanalysis, that is, shied away from working through psychoanalysis's allegedly unseemly conceptualizations of politics and subjectivity, this paper suggests that we have yet to catch up with some of psychoanalysis's most fundamental and valuable theorizations about space itself

Aesthetics · Apprehension · Doxa · Dream · Epistemology · Feeling · Linguistics · Neologism · Order (exchange · Politics · Psychoanalysis · Sincerity · Sociology · Space (punctuation) · Subjectivity · Crime and Detective Fiction Studies · Japanese History and Culture · Law · Philosophy · Psychoanalysis, Philosophy, and Politics · Psychology · Social Psychology