‘Chile woke up’ (and I can fall asleep no more): The fantasmatic organisation of the desire for change

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Abstract

In this article, I adopt the psychoanalytic notion of fantasy to challenge mainstream conceptualisations of the desire for social change. Recent anti-neoliberal uprisings across the world have been interpreted as expressions of the vitalist force of bodies beyond symbolic mediation. This obfuscates the ambivalent unconscious dynamics in the identification with emancipatory events. To counter this, I develop a psychoanalytic conceptualisation of the desire for change. I show the benefits of my approach through an empirical interpretation of the fantasmatic organisation of this desire in the context of the 2019 Chile revolt. By questioning the alleged straightforwardness of the desire for change, my study contributes to a more nuanced approach to emancipatory events.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)412-428
Number of pages17
JournalPsychoanalysis, Culture & Society
Volume29
Issue number3
Early online date8 Jul 2024
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Sept 2024

Bibliographical note

Copyright © The Author(s) 2024. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Keywords

  • fantasy
  • estallido social
  • desire
  • revolt
  • emancipation

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