Difference, whiteness and the group analytic matrix: An integrated formulation

Abstract

I am a black woman. This statement may trigger various responses and, perhaps even the urge to disengage. Nonetheless I write it as a social fact. Firstly, to forewarn the reader that the lifeworld they are about to enter may well challenge theirs and, to correct potential erroneous, normative, racial and gendered assumptions. I trust readers will stay with any potential discomfort. Read on. And, reflect upon it at the end of the article. I am too a psychologist and aspiring group analyst. This social and professional positioning means that I have heard many conversations on ‘difference’ where I, and others whose bodies look like mine, have been placed under the deforming microscope of the white gaze, for the alleged edification of my peers, one of the most objectifying encounter I continue to experience. There is a long history within western epistemic, ontological and other scholarly pursuits of normalizing whiteness, of regarding those ‘deviating’ from it as ‘different’ and, of subjecting them/us to investigation, curiosity and/or exoticisation. Ultimately, to consumption. Group analysis is no exception. Difference is a historically loaded term built on the brutality of white masculinist and heteronormative social constructions and thus, on the enactment of power related violence. Central to formulating the function of ‘difference’ and of such brutality between individuals and groups, is the group analytic concept of the matrix. Foulkes (1973), conceptualized it as a hypothetical web of communication and relationships providing the group a shared ground of meaning and significance. This article aims to critically examine the concept of the matrix with reference to race and specifically, to whiteness. It argues that fixating difference onto people of colour, serves fundamental functions for whiteness by linking this process to Foulkes’ concept of location of disturbance. In the second part, the group matrix and whiteness are considered. Finally, using various vignettes, a formulatory framework is suggested to illustrate how whiteness may be reproduced within different levels of the group matrix.

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