Racism: psychoanalytic and psychosocial approaches

Abstract

In this chapter, I want to explore the relationship between the inner world of the psyche, the construction of ethnicity and cultural identity and the way this relationship plays out in racist attitudes and beliefs. In particular, I want to highlight how psychoanalysis adds to our understanding of racism beyond that of traditional sociological explanations giving a different (not better) understanding of the psychosocial dynamics of ethnic hatred. I do this by charting some of the history of psychoanalytic theories of racism before offering some contemporary ideas. I feel that it is difficult to separate the complex amalgam of dynamics involved in racisms, ideas of Othering, fear and loathing of others, identity construction in relation to who we are not and the often exclusionary practices of community building, all interacting to form emotive and irrational ideas about others. The highly charged emotional dynamics, affective reasoning and bouts of seemingly irrational hatred all work together to fuel some of the virulent racisms, but, conversely, we have racisms that act in subtle and stealthy ways, often gnawing at individuals and groups – for example, institutional racisms. Psychoanalysis as a discipline deals directly with the emotional affective forces, using conceptual tools such as projection and projective identification to identify emotional and largely unconscious communications, and, as such, is well placed to build on, and add to, our understanding of racism. We all know that there is a social construction of our realities as much as we know that we are emotional people who construct our ‘selves’ in imagination and affect. Neither sociology nor psychoanalysis, nor psychology for that matter, provides a better explanation of the world than the other, but together they provide a deeper understanding of the social world.

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