Psychoanalyzing Europe? Political Enjoyment and European Identity

Dados Bibliográficos

ID7972020
AutoresChristoffer Kølvraa (0000-0002-8600-914X, Aarhus University, autor correspondente)
Ano2018
Volume39
Fascículo6
Páginas1405-1418
Data de publicação2018-12-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoPolitical Psychology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0162-895X • E-ISSN: 1467-9221
EditoraWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/pops.12547
OpenAlexW2905086307
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas16
Referências citadas54

This article seeks to discuss and illustrate how employing theoretical elements and interpretative frames from Lacanian psychoanalysis might help to conceptualize and analyze the affective dimension of European identity. European identity, as constructed in the discourses of European institutions, is believed to be crucial in legitimating the political project of European integration. It is argued that in order to understand how “desire” and jouissance (“enjoyment”) are active in this construction of European identity, we need to focus on the plotlines of the dominant narrative about Europe as articulated in official discourses. Using such an approach, I show that the EU’s preferred construction of a European identity, which narrates the EU as a grand peace project, is structured around the sacrifice of “national” jouissance, which in turn becomes a site of political enjoyment through the mediation of an external gaze

Aesthetics · Dimension (graph theory · European integration · European union · Gaze · Identity (music · Mediation · Narrative · Order (exchange · Political science · Politics · Psychoanalysis · Social science · Sociology · Law · Philosophy · Psychology