The conceptual distinctions introduced in Freud’s theorization of mourning, melancholia and melancholic identification can be used to open up the meaning of grief within the political field. Freud’s observation of the visceral ambivalence associated with melancholia provides a basis for later theorizations of the fundamental passion or narcissistic wound that underlies both the intransigence and the unpredictability of forces associated with loss. His conceptualization of complex mechanisms of internalization of both lost objects and cultural prohibitions, provides a basis for exploring processes of repudiation of excluded or marginalized identities. His identification of contrasting processes of internalization and externalization helps us to map the contrasting ways political energies are directed in the aftermath of loss. Most crucially, his formulation of unconscious object loss as a way of explaining intensely painful affective processes guides our understanding of relations to loss as a psychical layer embedded within political and economic relations. To explore the use of these ideas in political theory, this chapter examines a series of cases and suggests that it is important to distinguish between epistemology and the empirical exploration of a specific case. Epistemological arguments indicate some of the political risks involved in the representation of loss; but it is important to remain open minded in exploring unconscious relations to a particular instance of loss in the political field.

This chapter discusses the ways in which Basil Bernstein both uses and suppresses ideas associated with Melanie Klein’s theorization of psychic defences. The aspect of Klein’s theory is her specification of different forms in which psychic defences might appear. Klein’s account of the way introjective and projective processes construct an inner representational world, which replicates the infant’s experience of both inner drives and external interactions, constitutes one aspect of the concept of psychic defences. The different forms of psychic defences have been used to explore the construction of social and institutional identities. There are three aspects of Elliott Jaques’ work that are of analytical interest in relation to the recontextualization of the concept of ‘psychic defences’ in organizational research and consultancy. Isabel Menzies Lyth’s study of the nursing service in a teaching hospital contextualizes social defences against anxiety in a way that shifts the analysis from individuals or groups of individuals to the broader structures and purposes of the organization.

This paper explores the relation between transference and free association in the production of data in sociological and social research. Drawing on Laplanche's notion of the analyst as a provocation for the transference and Lacan's understanding of the analyst as cause of desire, we map transference as a condition for free association and theorise an 'enigma of participation' in research. We develop these ideas through a discussion of two astonishing moments in recent research interviews. We propose that free associative interviews can be understood as sites of transference that help us to glimpse the unconscious in social and political discourse and offer insights into the (im)possibilities of subjective change.

A range of sociological work has theorized neoliberal regulative regimes, suggesting the contradictions contained in the enactment of policy and foregrounding the painful effects of these processes on subjectivities produced within performative school cultures. This paper contributes to this body of work by tracing the movement of desire in teaching assistants' subjective relations to workplace practices of remuneration. We do this through an analysis of a series of group-and individual-free associative interviews with teaching assistants working in primary schools. Drawing on a Lacanian account of the way processes of identification channel affect, as desire, through signifying chains within a discursive field, we explore the associative chains of meaning that overdetermine the subjectivities produced within performative practices of remuneration. We suggest that the complex and contradictory chains of signification embodied in the school environment constitute a space where fragile teaching assistant subjectivities reiterate previous relations to an ambiguous Other.

In the context of ongoing debates about the distinctive temporalities associated with contemporary regulative regimes, this paper explores the interpretive trajectories initiated in contrasting conceptualisations of the politics of time. This exploration is developed through analysis of interview data from a study of unconscious relations in academic practice. Section one uses one moment of data to contrast phenomenological, Deleuzian and Lacanian theorisations of the relation between time and subjectivity. Section two is an exegesis of Lacan's paper on Logical Time. This outlines the way temporality is structured in relation to the subject's guess about the expectations of the Other. Section three uses this to develop an interpretation of three temporalities that constitute the space of contemporary academic subjectivities. The final section considers the intensification of the juxtaposition of these incongruent temporalities, contrasting Lacanian and Deleuzian theorisations of time in the Real/virtual and their implications for both methodological and political strategy.

This article sets out two psychoanalytically informed conceptions of fantasy as a resource for reflexivity in research. First is the fantasy as a defensive structure that distorts our perception of reality, and the use of the researcher’s affective responses as an interpretive tool. Second is the fantasy as a signifying structure that constitutes the subject’s engagement in reality, foregrounding unconscious symbolic associations. These approaches are traced in the construction and analysis of interview data, exploring (a) a trajectory that interprets fantasy as a defense against difficult emotions, (b) the construction of free associations, and (c) symbolic material that disrupts the interpretation of fantasy as defense.

Reviewed by Joanna Williams, Heather Mendick, and Claudia LappingIn Benign Violence, Education In and Beyond the Age of Reason, Ansgar Allen confronts readers with a disturbing history of schooling...

This chapter attempts to tease out relations between epistemological and interpretive aspects of methodological practice. It does this in the context of recent debates within the emerging field of Psychosocial Studies about the use of psychoanalysis within social research. The chapter explores the interpretive trajectories initiated in contrasting conceptualisations of the relation between subject and other. It attempts to disentangle the epistemological assumptions and methodological injunctions articulated in different approaches, while also suggesting the strength of our attachment to these authoritative points of identification within the practice of research. Starting from a discussion of psychoanalytically informed conceptions of ‘countertransference’ and ‘recognition’, the paper goes on to explore Lacan’s notion of the ‘action of interpretation’, and what this might look like within the practice of research. It does this through an exploration of instances from an interview based research project investigating unconscious relations in academic practice. These instances relate to moments of disruption to disciplinary or methodological identities. The analysis draws attention to shifting locations and modes of articulation of desire within research.

Tahir Abbas Jane Abbiss Sandra Acker Matthew Adam Belinda Aeschlimann Mehrunnisa Ahmad Ali Elif Akşit Suki Ali Alexandra Allan Andrea Allard Pam Alldred Bronwynne Anderson Victoria Armstrong Madeleine Arnot Marit Asas Martin Ashley Nado Aveling Lucy Bailey Joanne Baker Balamuralithara Balakrishnan Beatrice Balfour Bidisha Banerjee Katarina Barajas Sarah Barnard Ashley Barr Lesley Bartlett Leslie Bash Tehmina Basit Päivi Berg Rachel Berman Deevia Bhana Kalwant Bhopal Rebecca Bigler Herng-Dar Bih Shane Blackman Mindy Blaise Frank Blye Rebecca Boden Helen Bowes-Catton Sara Bragg Berit Brandth Jürgen Budde Cathy Burnett Bridget Byrne Manuel Caeiro-Rodriguez Helen Cahill Kate Cairns Reid Carol Jenni Carr Sophia Catsambis Cleti Cervoni Claire Charles Fatuma Chege Linda Chisholm Anna Chronaki Mary Cobbett Raewyn Connell Diane Cooper Gill Crozier Fin Cullen Miriam David Bronwyn Davies Sara Delamont Jannick Demanet Jo-anne Dillabough Nadine Dolby Rachel Donkersloot Catherine Driscoll

Following recent debates within Psychosocial Studies, this paper explores the interpretive trajectories initiated in contrasting conceptualisations of the relation between subject and other. Starting from a discussion of countertransference, I go on to examine Lacan’s notion of the ‘action of interpretation’ and what this might look like within the practice of research. My analysis is organised around instances from an interview-based research project investigating unconscious relations in academic practice. These instances relate to moments of disruption to disciplinary or methodological identities. The analysis thus draws attention to shifting locations and modes of articulation of desire within research.

Different epistemological stances constitute different pictures of the world. This is a mundane truism but also a useful starting point for my attempt to construct one particular picture of academic practice in higher education. My picture of higher education explores instances from interviews with academics, to suggest a way of seeing what we might think of as an unconscious or an ‘other side’ of higher education institutions. This unconscious, I am suggesting, is constitutive of both intellectual authority and policy-driven institutional values. The approach I am taking suggests the productivity of interpreting these aspects of higher education practice as social fantasies that act both as a point of identification and as a limit to contemporary academic subjectivities. My methodology for the development of this argument, including both the construction of the interviews and the analysis of the project data, is situated within a particular epistemological framework that already repositions the concepts of affect, agency and privilege that are the focus of this book. This framework is broadly informed by Lacanian psychoanalytic theory, although I would argue that it is impossible and inconsistent to try to maintain a purist Lacanian position in the process of constructing and interpreting either research or psychoanalytic data. Lacan’s theory both directs the interpretive gaze and warns against the imposition of prior theoretical commitments onto the repositioned signifiers that constitute the object of an analysis.

This paper traces the way discourses within early years policy and practice impose meanings onto the signifier 'play'. Drawing on Bernstein's conceptualisation of recontextualising strategies, we explore how these meanings regulate troubling excesses in children's 'play'. The analysis foregrounds an underlying question about the hold the signifier 'play' maintains within discourses that appear antithetical to traditional understandings of 'play'.