The grip of personalization in adult social care:between managerial domination and fantasy

This paper examines the 'ideological grip' of personalization. It does so empirically, tracking the trajectory of personalization through austerity budgeting in one English local authority. In this case, personalization continued to signify hope and liberation even though the most draconian cuts in the Council's history effectively rendered personalization a practical impossibility. This requires critical theorization. Two bodies of theory are interrogated. First Boltanski's sociology of critique, and, in particular, his notion of managerial domination illuminate the way in which change imperatives and crises come to cement ideological formations. Here it is argued that the articulation of personalization with transformation lends itself to managerial domination. It is further argued, though, that while institutional actors may be able to manipulate the symbolic to evade, what Boltanski terms, deconstructionist critique, this cannot entirely explain the hold of this particular discourse. Here, the Lacanian concept of enjoyment is deployed to interrogate its extra-symbolic function and fantasmatic form. Finally, the paper explores the political implications of such affective attachment and, in particular, the guarantee that personalization offers in a period of welfare state decline. © The Author(s) 2012.

Engaging autobiography:mobility trauma and international relations

This article outlines the possibilities of autobiographical stories to criticize status quo iterations of International Relations (IR). The article draws on the personal experiences of the author’s deportation order issued by the United Kingdom’s Home Office and its associated Border Agency (UKBA) to challenge the accepted assumptions of a cosmopolitan worldview as it relates to orderly international institutional design. It highlights the possibilities of trauma when border management and personal mobility collide. It suggests that mobility trauma ensues when the expectations of human mobility, outlined in Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, infringe the state’s role as security provider. It begins in part one with a challenge to the traditional role and understanding of international borders that sustain order within the international. It examines the unacknowledged role that human vulnerability plays within IR and institutional design while frankly engaging with human vulnerability and trauma in the second section. This section details the experiences of the author when her mobility rights were curtailed and the ensuing identity crisis prompted by such events. The final section investigates the ideas of critical cosmopolitan scholarship demanding that such discourses acknowledge and work through the possibility of failed agency when the demands of state security supersede individual mobility rights. It turns to the possibility of traumatic iterations of IR in order to probe such possibilities. The article suggests, in its conclusion, the possibility of storytelling and psychoanalysis to endorse unorthodox agency, and the possibility of a dynamic international institutional design, that challenges the status quo iterations of IR.

Enjoying the third age! Discourse, identity and liminality in extra-care communities

Extra-care housing has been an important and growing element of housing and care for older people in the United Kingdom since the 1990s. Previous studies have examined specific features and programmes within extra-care locations, but few have studied how residents negotiate social life and identity. Those that have, have noted that while extra care brings many health-related and social benefits, extra-care communities can also be difficult affective terrain. Given that many residents are now ‘ageing in place’ in extra care, it is timely to revisit these questions of identity and affect. Here we draw on the qualitative element of a three-year, mixed-method study of 14 extra-care villages and schemes run by the ExtraCare Charitable Trust. We follow Alemàn in regarding residents' ambivalent accounts of life in ExtraCare as important windows on the way in which liminal residents negotiate the dialectics of dependence and independence. However, we suggest that the dialectic of interest here is that of the third and fourth age, as described by Gilleard and Higgs. We set that dialectic within a post-structuralist/Lacanian framework in order to examine the different modes of enjoyment that liminal residents procure in ExtraCare's third age public spaces and ideals, and suggest that their complaints can be read in three ways: as statements about altered material conditions; as inter-subjective bolstering of group identity; and as fantasmatic support for liminal identities. Finally, we examine the implications that this latter psycho-social reading of residents' complaints has for enhancing and supporting residents' wellbeing.

Polemos and Paideia: On the Weaponization of the School in Late Capitalism

A popular refrain in the politics of American education, often buttressed by a steady stream of studies, contends that ‘we are falling behind’ students from other countries. Sometimes this decline is specified in terms of discipline, but the general premise is that American students lag behind their foreign counterparts, with special dread attached to the notion of falling behind adversaries such as China. The failure to rectify our educational inadequacies apparently portends a genuine crisis, the loss of global dominance. The articulation of such fears is particularly instructive in discerning the political role of education in late capitalism, its conceptualization and uses within the context of politics. How do the fears of falling behind speak to the political role of education in late capitalism? I draw upon the ideas of the Herbert Marcuse and his Marxist intervention into Freudian psychoanalysis. Using Marcuse’s framework, I argue that in late capitalism the political role of education, formerly understood to serve life affirming value, has been reoriented to further the aims of the death drive. The fears of falling behind, and the policies that have followed, are symptomatic of a disposition toward education that has reconfigured the school as a means of conquest, subjugation, and war.

Androgyny versus Patriarchy: A Historicist‐Psychoanalytic Reading of Hemingway's The Garden of Eden and Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White

This paper will examine how male and female character interactions in Ernest Hemingway’s The Garden of Eden and Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White expose the internalization, normalization, and perpetuation of current modes of patriarchy in terms of gender roles through their presentations of androgyny. This paper highlights the parallels of gender construction and the interaction within the social relations depicted in these two novels, which have not been compared previously. The premise, based on the psychoanalytic theories of Jacques Lacan and cultural materialism of Raymond Williams, is that fiction reflects historical and contemporary social relations. Lacanian and feminist interpretations have both been conducted on literature written by Collins and Hemingway; however, neither look at these particular novels as two examples for the same contemporary phenomenon of 21st century patriarchal interpellation. This paper most similarly follows the work of Slavoj Žižek who analyzes contemporary social relations through film (including classics such as Casablanca and works by Alfred Hitchcock) and other aspects of popular culture. This project’s contribution and uniqueness lie with the way it applies theory to these particular literary works, specifically concerning gender relations and the prevalence of androgyny in widely read works by well-known authors in two very different literary and historical eras. My interpretation of these two novels provides an evaluation of historical and contemporary patriarchal norms and a radical potentiality for subverting the idea of static gender roles that has remained prevalent throughout the three centuries of these texts’ existence.

Lacan, Gödel, a ciência e a verdade

Jaques Lacan, the thinker who proposes a return to the fundamentals of psychoanalysis in Freud states that the math would face as a privileged way of transmission of knowledge by the science. Although he was a follower of the mathematization of nature as the foundation of modern science, for him this principle does not imply eliminating the subject that produces it. That would be equivalent to saying that there can not be a language, whatever, even the math, that may "erases" the subject assumption in science. In the text The science and the truth we will try to introduce the idea, not so simple, by the way, the truth as the cause. Citing the framework of the causes in Aristotle, Lacan will speak of a homology between the truth as formal cause, in the case of science, and the truth as material cause, on the side of psychoanalysis. Among its aims with this text, he wants to establish that the unconscious of the subject would be none other than the subject of science. The famous incompleteness theorems of logical-mathematical Kurt Gödel enter here as a chapter of this issue. Recognized as true watershed, these theorems have to be remembered as revealing even outside the mathematical environment, and Lacan himself is not indifferent to this. He makes mention of Gödel's name and draws some observations apparently modest support for his own theory. Since some technical sophisticated knowledges awaits the reader who intends understand this supposed corroboration that Gödel provides to psychoanalysis, introduce the student of Lacan in the use he makes of the incompleteness theorems is the objective of this work. In The science and the truth, which fits us to locate the name of Gödel, one must question how seize such an idea without incurring the extrapolation and abuse of mathematical knowledge, almost trivial in this case. Thus, this paper aims to introduce the reader to the reasoning behind the theorems of Gödel, acquaint him about the Lacan’s mathematical claims, and indicate how to proceed using this implicit math in the text The science and the truth.

O saber na perspectiva psicanalítica de orientação freudo-lacaniana: um estudo teórico

This work came from a research question, namely authorizing a child to learn, lifted from the care of a child of 09 years in the school service of a private university located in Natal, whose complaint referred to a learning disorder more specifically, not the formalization of reading and writing. To undertake a survey of the Lacanian psychoanalytic - Freudian literature on learning, we find the concept of knowledge as fundamental to the analysis of this issue which led us to investigate the history of its co nstruction in Freud and Lacan, with a view to shed light on their relationship to learn. This is a theoretical type of research with the proposal to revisit the concept of knowledge in the work of Freud and Lacan's teaching, in which case only served as th e trigger point of this work. We found that in both these authors, the concept of knowledge is associated to the unconscious exclusively and can be hinged to learn the way of the desire to know. It concludes that learning is a process that involves the unconscious knowledge. Consequently, learning disorders may be linked to the impossible into play in the know about the desire to find himself alienated the significant of what operates as forbidden to know when not referred only or also of teaching and / or educational aspects. This shows us that the complaints that come to the clinic can illustrate dilemmas experienced by the speaking, related to subjective questions. Deviations from the possibility of learning may indicate in these cases, a manifestation of what is singular and very impossibility of generalization when it comes to subjects. With this, also attest that the relations of the subject with knowledge effect in learning processes.

Quando a indisciplina escolar é um sintoma? articulações psicanalíticas

From a clinical case reporting a severe “ scholarship indiscipline”, this work questioned how the indiscipline can be a symptom . To answer the question, it was analyzed the symptom concept from the Freudian - lacaneana perspective and theirs connections with “ scholarship indiscipline” subject . The research used a theoretical and clinical method , to show the connection between the case development and the psychoanalytic publications reviewing questions on the subject . It was undertook a historical analysis of the construction of disciplinary mechanism through the works of Foucault (1987, 1996), Deleuze (1988; 1992) and commentators. This historical analysis showed a dated and unnatural character of this discursive production named “ scholarship indiscipline”, revealing the indiscipline complaint comes from a social speech that imposes the idea that learn ing depends on the discipline. However , this idea type has a flaw , because always something escapes disciplining . The social answer to the escape is the complaint of indiscipline, which can be taken as a social symptom . Each child should find an answer to this speech and define the symptomatic character , or not , from itself . It was evaluated the symptom and its consequences in the clinic with the child in the Freud and Lacan teachings . The Freud view showed the symptom is the answer to a psychic work , replacing a repressed representation linked to an unbearable sexual dis satisfaction , providing a solution for the child to deal with castration and with the imposed social restrictions . A review of Freud's work undertaken by Lacan emphasizes the psycholog ical work characteristics undertaken by the speaker with its symptom by the link with the social aspect. To analyze, in each case, the position occupied by the patient of a complaint against the indiscipline can open the way to work with it. If the discipl ine is the answer of the subject towards the Other social, from psychoanalysis it is offering a help that allows reframe this response. Elucidating the symptomatic character, or not, from attitudes considered undisciplined, calls for the analysis of unique ness involved in the response of each child, their subjectivity.

“É acompanhante ou usuária?” Implicações sobre a posição da família no atendimento a crianças e adolescentes em um Centro de Atenção Psicossocial da Infância e Adolescência - CAPSi

This study emerged and founded itself with the aim to analyze the position taken by the family – and the implications in this subjective area – in attending children and adolescents in a Childhood Psychosocial Care Center (CAPSi). A secondary goal has come up as the comprehension surrounding the institutional representation made about the family and the service offered to children, adolescents and relatives. For such, the historical perspective on the relation between the State (laws and institutions) and the family was resumed, and the understanding of how it was reconciled by the medical knowledge and attended the ideological and political means. The social and ideological transformations of the 20th century culminated in the need of change required by the Psychiatric Reform and the achievement of patients on the right to return home and to their families. This new situation, permeated by the attempt of building an assistance model in Mental Health, presented a peculiarity–the close relationship between family and Mental Health services. The observations and conversations at CAPSi that were the investigation objects in this research, intended to learn on the quotidian of families and the possible treatment alternatives that would take into account the family circumstances. Conceiving the status of the families in Mental Health services is a germinal matter yet to be adjusted among the active knowledge in the post-Reform devices. The discussion about the family bonds, anchored in the theoretical perspective of Binding Psychoanalysis brought up elementary concepts such as psychic heritage, denial pact, unconscious alliances, the familiar psychic set, among other. The concept of family organizer helped to think of the family trajectories and stablishes a sort of identity for the family, as well as interferes in the establishment of its boundaries. The family path within the institution, as well as the status they establish facing the institutional approach, reflect the ghosts and the organizers shared by the group-family. It follows that the family is an important protagonist to be considered in the current therapeutic and political processes and, thus, is key to welcome the family bonds for the alliances act over the affective destinations, as well as try to remain sealed from the proposed changes.

Internação involuntária e o abuso de substâncias psicoativas - o pathos familiar

The use and abuse of Psychoactive Substances (PAS) in contemporaneity corresponds to a social issue and a public health issue. Few social phenomena entail more costs with justice and health, family difficulties, and appearances in the media than the PAS abuse comsumption. The government power has been facing this situation allocating investments and developing public policies. Despite the current Mental Health Policy, based on the principles of Psychiatric Reform that prioritizes outpatient services, the number of investments from various government spheres and families requests for admissions continue increasing. This study aimed to understand the pathos experienced by an individual toward the involuntary internment of a family member who is an abusive user of PAS. The research also aimed to investigate what led that individual to choose this type of treatment. The Psychoanalysis was the theoretical basis of this work, and the exercise of the psychoanalytic method, from the collection of bibliographic references up to the interpretation of the semi-structured interview, conducted in depth, was intended. The findings of this research gave us the oportunity of thinking about how the social callings to the family were made, especially in regard of atention and care with their family members who are user of PAS and how it affects this family individual. It also allowed to discuss how the public policies that preconize involuntary internment, affectivity, prohibitionist and mono-disciplinarity – that cross the State in the attention given to this issue – are formulated and implemented. The interview analysis showed us how happen the agencying of pathos, the libidinal aspects of joy and guilt, the desire to punish and atonement, working in family relations and in caring relations, especially in the decision for involuntary internment. The survey also made possible to understand how a mother, facing the chaotic scene of public health, helpless, finds in the involuntary internment a way to reverberate her affections.

Das saudades que se tem: a representação paterna na escrita autobiográfica de Bartolomeu Campos de Queirós

In our work, we analyze some works of Bartolomeu Campos de Queirós that compose the “autobiographical cycle”, especially those ones that bring the image of father’s absence/presence, the relationship between life and writing, as well as the father’s figurations and his intermediates and substitutes. We especially investigated the aspect of repetition about how the family relations are articulated, highlighting those ones that happen between father and son and that appear in these texts. This problematic interested us as a research object, a priori, because the works of Bartholomeu Campos de Queirós are an exponent of literature for children field, as far as they show that the childhood is not always “colorful”, happy and perfect as several productions supposedly made “for children” seek to have us believe. In addition, the selected texts that have an autobiographical characteristic and put the issue of child suffering because of the father’s absence are configured as a very rich corpus for studies related to the relation between life/work and investigations in the dialogue between Literature and Psychoanalysis. These aspects will permit us to understand why the pain of missing father be repetitive and insistent in these books. Thus, we problematize, by the selected works for this study, the concept of literature for children and young people and the notion of literary reading. We also analyzed in the “statements” given by the author the relationship between life and writing and we investigated, based on psychoanalytic studies, the literary writing as a possibility of both unconscious development of memory marked by the father’s absence – remedy – as of a perpetuation of this same conflict – poison. Furthermore, we analyzed how the relationship between son and father are processed considering the mother’s absence, since the works that have this person’s presence, she seems to mediate such relationships in a certain way.

Dark journeys: Jacques Tourneur's Experiment Perilous

An analysis of Jacques Tourneur's 1944 film

Not Belonging to one’s Self: Affect on Facebook’s Site Governance page

This article makes a contribution to a growing number of works that discuss affect and social media. I use Freudian affect theory to analyse user posts on the public Site Governance Facebook page. Freud’s work may help us to explore the affectivity within the user narratives and I suggest that they are expressions of alienation, dispossession and powerlessness that relate to the users’ relations with Facebook as well as to their internal and wider social relations. The article thus introduces a new angle on studies of negative user experiences that draws on psychoanalysis and critical theory.

The Subject in the Crowd: A Critical Discussion of Jodi Dean’s “Crowds and Party”

This article presents a critical discussion of Jodi Dean’s (2016) book “Crowds and Party”. I pay particular attention to her discussion of crowds and the Communist Party that is influenced by psychoanalysis. Dean has put forward an important argument for the affectivity within crowds that may be transformed into a Communist Party that is characterised by a similar affective infrastructure. I suggest that Dean’s discussion of affect is slightly vague at times and may be supplemented with Sigmund Freud’s work on affect. In contrast to Dean, who stresses the collectivity and deindividuation of the crowd, I argue that the crowd needs to be thought of as a place where individuality and collectivity come together and remain in tension. Such a tension may then be managed by the Party, as Dean illustrates.

La metáfora en los museos de historia social

Antes de la puesta en práctica de los archivos en papel en el siglo XIX había muchas formas líricas de conocer el pasado, por ejemplo, a través del canto y de la pintura. En la evolución de los museos del siglo XIX, los artefactos ocuparon el lugar del conocimiento correspondiente de la “verdad” que se creía existente en el papel archivado. El trabajo del Museo procedió con la certeza del sentido común de una correspondencia individualizada racional entre un artefacto y su significado. La confianza en la capacidad denotativa del artefacto era así la estrategia para transmitir significado a los visitantes. Los museos están alejándose ahora de la denotación como estrategia de comunicación primaria, y uno de los modos que surge es la metáfora. Así como se entendía antiguamente que el significado fijo de los objetos residía en su pura materialidad, ahora vemos el resurgir de la materialidad en los museos, pero esta vez a través de la metáfora, teóricamente entendida como apoyada en la experiencia material del mundo por parte de nuestros cuerpos humanos.