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Summary Fanon and the Psychoanalysis of Racism: Chapter 5
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A complete summary of Fanon and his psychoanalysis of racism with regards to critical psychology.
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By: michelevmelville • 5 year ago
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FANON AND THE PSYCHOANALYSIS OFRACISM
1. Explain how Fanon adapts, in conditional ways, theoretical notions of psychoanalysis (such as those of
neurosis, phobia, paranoia, the ‘European collective unconscious’, and so on) to illustrate the workings of
colonial racism
Psychopolitics
Critical awareness of the role that political factors (relations of power) play within the domain of the
psychological
Understanding of how politics impacts the psychological and how personal psychology may be the level at
which politics is internalised
The psychological analysis of power
Fanons work moves continually between the socio-political and the psychological = Psychopolitics
The politicisation of the psychological occurs through placing psychological concerns and concepts within the
register of the political
Fanon shows the extent to which human psychology is intimately linked to socio-political and historical forces
Psychopolitics lies in employing psychological concepts and explanations to describe and illustrate the
workings of power
Fanon brings politics into psychology & also brings psychology into politics by analysing power through a
series of psychoanalytic conceptualisations
This helps to dramatize the logic and working of such forms of power, especially colonial racism
This is what we may term Fanons analysis of the psychic life of the colonial encounter
The objective of such psychological descriptions is to:
→ subject such forms of power to critique; understand them better; challenge them more effectively
Fanon provides a layered theoretical approach to the problems of black identity in racist/ colonial contexts
Aim: use complementary theoretical explanations to build a unique analytical framework
The framework must be able to critique aspects of colonial experience from a variety of perspectives
The ‘psychic life of colonial power’ - The dream of turning white
Fanon psychoanalyses race and various aspects of the colonial encounter
The prime focus of his psychoanalytic attentions is the juxtaposition of white and black races in the context of
colonisation
The white coloniser and the black colonised exist within the grip of a massive psycho-existential complex
→ This complex has multiple detrimental psychological effects
→ Such effects are realized in the dreams of the colonised but also in the psychic life of the colonised who
thinks of himself as white
Fanon looks to the underlying desire motivating the dreams/ actions/ personality of the colonised and claims to
find a simple wish
→ What does the black man want? - The black man wants to be white
NB that we contextualise this wish within the colonial context - within a context in which the white subject has
in relative terms everything and the black man has nothing
This desire to be white is not trans-historical (across all historical settings) or universal - it is an outcome of a
specific configuration of power/ real material/ economic/ cultural/ socio-political conditions
These conditions continually celebrate and empower the white subject and continually denigrate and dispossess
the black man
Fanon tracks the implications of wanting to be white across the domains of language/ sexuality/ dreams/
behaviour
Neuroses of blackness
1|Chapter 5
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