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Article Dans Une Revue Constellations Année : 2020

Desire and Collective Identities

Résumé

This article argues that Ernesto Laclau’s notion of demand is problematic. By converting a demand into the basic unit of analysis, Laclau inadvertently distances himself from the post-foundational approach that defined his discourse theory. Therefore, for it to be coherent with a discursive approach to social reality, the idea of demand should be decomposed and reevaluated from a psychoanalytic perspective. The article defends the view that Jacques Lacan’s dismissal of demands as a symbolic articulation that conceals desire leads to a fruitful rectification of Laclau’s theory on the construction of collective identities. It shows that the main category present in identificatory processes is desire, not demand. The article concludes that a study focused on desire could analyze a broader set of empirical cases and also provide the basis for a normative and ethical analysis. Moreover, it allows for a reading of Laclau’s references to the psychoanalytic concept of sublimation as a democratic answer to the fantasmatic metonymy of desire.
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Dates et versions

hal-03381013 , version 1 (15-10-2021)

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Thomas Zicman de Barros. Desire and Collective Identities: Decomposing Ernesto Laclau's Notion of Demand. Constellations, 2020, pp.1 - 11. ⟨10.1111/1467-8675.12490⟩. ⟨hal-03381013⟩
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