Psychoanalysis, decolonization and intersectionality: contributions of Frantz Fanon

Abstract

The subjectivity is an indispensable element in the perpetuation of colonial logic. However, it is in the area of social sciences, and not psychoanalysis, that we find the greatest volume of works that question the consequences of colonization on subjectivities. It is in facing this incongruity that we approach Franz Fanon, and, from him, the category of intersectionality. Despite not appearing as a psychoanalytic concept, we understand this category as a tool that strengthens the ties between psychoanalysis and a colonial critique. The objective of our work is to demarcate how the intersectional paradigm can work in alliance with the psychoanalytic discourse, by indicating the limits of abstract categories in dealing with subjectivities. At the same time, this paradigm instrumentalizes towards the production of a sensitivity that makes visible the racial alienation that colonization imposes on bodies. Thus, the decolonial perspective denaturalizes the systemic incidence of domination, giving rise to the historicized dimension of forms of subjectivation. Thus, at first, indicates the confrontation between Franz Fanon and Octave Mannoni, who, by emphasizing the importance of the subject and subjectivity in colonial criticism, established psychoanalysis as a relevant device for the decolonial task. In the second moment, we make considerations about subjectivity and decolonial efforts. Colonization make in cuts the record of existence, inaugurating the opposition between existing beings and those considered semi-existent. In the second moment, we seek to advance considerations about subjectivity and decolonial efforts. Colonization cuts the record of existence, inaugurating the opposition between existing beings and those considered semi-existent. Finally, we approach how intersectionality can make translucent subjectivity and the unconscious subject, constituted and marked in its symbolization conditions by the differential incidence of gender, race and social class.