Psychoanalysis and International Development

This chapter examines the contributions of psychoanalysis to international development, illustrating ways in which thinking and practice in this field are psychoanalytically structured. Drawing mainly on the work of Jacques Lacan and Slavoj Žižek, it emphasizes three key points. First, psychoanalysis can help uncover the unconscious of development — its gaps, dislocations, blind spots — thereby elucidating the latter's contradictory and seemingly “irrational” practices. Second, the important psychoanalytic notion of jouissance (enjoyment) can help explain why development discourse endures, that is, why it has such sustained appeal, and why we continue to invest in it despite its many problems. Third, psychoanalysis can serve as an important tool for ideology critique, helping to expose the socioeconomic contradictions and antagonisms that development persistently disavows. The chapter then reflects on the limits of psychoanalysis — the extent to which it is gendered and, given its Western origins, universalizable.

Capitalism as Envy-Machine

This chapter argues that the dominant affect of late global capitalism is not egoism, as is commonly held, but envy. The social inequality inherent in capitalist accumulation in the global South (and North) breeds a mix of coveting and malice, so that it is not just that those on top of the social hierarchy must win but equally that those on the bottom must lose, generating enjoyment (jouissance) on both sides. The chapter focuses on two contemporary manifestations of such an envy-machine. The first is consumption, which exploits the urge to “keep up with the Joneses.” The second is corruption, born of socioeconomic resentment and aspiration. Each case involves enjoyment — both in envying and being envied — thus helping to reproduce capitalist development and social inequality.

The Racist Enjoyments and Fantasies of International Development

This chapter explores racist enjoyments and fantasies of international development. The small size of the literature on racism in international development is revealing of the relative silence on the issue in this field. There is repeated exclamation in this same literature about such silence, yet with nary a reference to the unconscious. What appears to be missing is precisely a psychoanalytic understanding of this silence. Although scholars underline a general reticence in talking about racism in development, they proceed to speak about it even so, pointing out the many ways in which it manifests. Yet it seems difficult to understand how racism can be both denied and furtively confessed without recourse to the notion of the unconscious. In fact, “a silence that nonetheless speaks” is the very psychoanalytic definition of the unconscious. Moreover, what remains unexplained is why such racism cannot be publicly or “officially” uttered. Could it be because the racism that supports development is obscene? Is it because development is sustained, willy-nilly, by alluring (unconscious) fantasies of domination and white supremacy, with the result that people actually enjoy racism? Is this why racism cannot be easily admitted (or eliminated)?

The Universalist Dimensions of Antagonism

This chapter focuses on two recent controversies in which Slavoj Žižek has been embroiled — the European refugee crisis and the issue of Eurocentrism — to illustrate the two universalist dimensions of antagonism. The two controversies are, of course, directly pertinent to international development, since the one (the refugee crisis) is closely entwined with North–South relations and the global politics of inequality, while the other (Eurocentrism) is a key cause of concern for those (postcolonial, decolonial) development theorists and practitioners focusing on continuing patterns of Western domination. Žižek's stand on both issues has been the subject of notable disapproval, if not denunciation. Critics reproach him for being Eurocentric and even racist, charges which he has repeatedly countered. The chapter examines the differing theoretical and political positions in these debates, underlining what Žižek's critics miss or misunderstand about the key notion of antagonism.

Development and the Poor

This chapter draws on Lacanian psychoanalysis to zero in on the kernel of enjoyment involved in regulating the poor. Here, not only are the poor seen as symptoms of capitalist development — its rejects and disposables — but a significant economy of enjoyment is produced wherein the development industry, as well as the poor themselves, enjoy the(ir) symptom. The poor, in this sense, are what Jacques Lacan would call the sinthome of development, whose presence is what binds the massive institutional machinery together, serving as its very raison d'être, yet whose absence would cause it to fall apart. The poor so conceived are the potentially disruptive limit point of the global capitalist order. The chapter suggests that it is the notion of jouissance (enjoyment) which better helps explain how capitalist ideology can psychoanalytically (and materially) embed itself at the level of the state as much as local citizens, and in the development apparatus as much as the ranks of the poor-as-symptom.

Post-Development’s Surrender to Global Capitalism

This chapter offers a psychoanalytic critique of Post-Development, arguing that the latter's inattention to the unconscious underpinnings of power not only leaves it unable to explain why development discourse persists, but also deprives it of a deviant or radical politics, resulting in a surrender to global capitalism. Drawing mainly on the work of Arturo Escobar and James Ferguson, but also of Gustavo Esteva, it valorizes Post-Development's important insights on the production of development discourse and its attendant power mechanisms. By using a Lacanian lens, the chapter also probes Post-Development's failure to address how power is mediated at the level of the subject: in maintaining that (capitalist) development is produced discursively in a cold, impersonal way. Post-Development ignores the fact that such power is able to take hold, expand and, crucially, persist only through unconscious libidinal attachments. This failure leaves Post-Development with few resources to address the structural challenges of global capitalism. Psychoanalytically speaking, such a (Left) position appears to manifest a secret desire that nothing too much must change: Post-Development may well criticize the disciplinary mechanisms of neoliberal development, but ultimately it engages in an unconscious acceptance of capitalism.

The Queer Third World

This chapter assesses the relationship between the concepts of “queer” and “Third World,” and attempts to group them in their common inheritance of subjugation and disparagement and their shared allegiance precisely to nonalignment and a radical politics (of development). In assembling both terms one is struck by how, in the mainstream discourse of international development, the Third World comes off looking remarkably queer: under Western eyes, it has often been constructed as perverse, abnormal, and passive. Its sociocultural values and institutions are seen as deviantly strange — backward, effete, even effeminate. Its economic development is depicted as abnormal, always needing to emulate the West, yet never living up to the mark. For their part, post-colonial Third World nation-states have tended to disown and purge such queering — by denying their queerness and, in fact, often characterizing it as a “Western import” — yet at the same time imitating the West, modernizing or Westernizing sociocultural institutions, and pursuing neoliberal capitalist growth. The chapter claims that the Western and Third World stances are two sides of the same discourse but, drawing on Lacanian queer theory, also suggests that a “queer Third World” would better transgress this discourse by embracing queerness as the site of structural negativity and destabilizing politics.

Fetishism in International Development

This chapter discusses fetishism. As a substitute for fundamental trauma, the fetish is a site of disavowal, allowing the subject to better master their world by ridding it of difference. Additionally, by behaving single-mindedly toward the fetish object as if it possesses a sublime quality, the fetishist forecloses other possible worthy objects or sociopolitical goals. Mastery, disavowal, and foreclosure thus become the hallmarks of fetishism. The chapter applies these psychoanalytic insights to international development — particularly its dominant modernization variant — by focusing on two of the latter's top fetishes: growth and technology. It examines how to each fetish is ascribed extraordinary powers, with several important socioenvironmental implications: the domination of the Other; the disavowal of social inequalities and environmental degradation; and the foreclosure of politics.

What “Drives” Capitalist Development?

This chapter highlights the importance of (unconscious) social passions in the socioeconomic system so central to development — capitalism. It focuses on the Lacanian notion of “drive,” a compulsion that stems from our ontological loss as linguistic beings, to suggest that capitalist development is propelled by an accumulation drive. Unlike desire, which capitalism manipulates at the level of consumption, drive involves the more fundamental compulsion to repeat endlessly, which manifests as the circular drive to accumulate for the sake of accumulation. In late capitalism, such a drive has resulted in a crisis of overaccumulation, which results in imperialism and “accumulation by dispossession,” especially in the global South. The capitalist development drive thus turns crisis into triumph, generating enjoyment, not from success, but from repeated failure. It is this libidinal kick (jouissance) which accompanies drive that helps explain capitalism's continued obstinacy and endurance. The chapter then reflects on the possibilities of disrupting capitalist development through drive.

The “Gaze” in Participatory Development

This chapter contrasts the Foucauldian view with a Lacanian take on the gaze, stressing its affective dimensions. Here, the desire is less to master the Other than to perpetuate oneself, for example by masochistically manipulating the gaze of the Other in a way that is nonthreatening and pleasurable. Participatory development projects, in this sense, are a way of shoring up the donor's self-image (of benevolence) and enjoyment. Yet the gaze, for Jacques Lacan, is a point of distortion or trauma, wherein the subject not only enjoys but also secretly envies the Other's enjoyment (which remains unattainable). This opens up possibilities for exploiting the master's insecurities and need for recognition, disrupting their gaze by looking back threateningly, thus enabling participants in development projects to hijack participation for their own purposes.