Research in psychoanalysis, politics, and the lived experience of the black man

Abstract

This paper seeks to examine possible articulations between psychoanalytic research, politics, and the methodology of lived experience. Initially, we present the inextricable relationship between psychoanalytic praxis and politics, understanding that the branches of psychoanalysis and its paradigms are critically grounded within culture. Next, we present the already established dialogue between psychoanalysis and narrative-based design, a basis for structuring various methodological approaches in academic research. Through this articulation, we analyze one of these possible approaches: the lived experience. We begin with its construction as a philosophical concept and then focus on the one that is the subject of interest of this text: the term “lived experience of the Black man” [l’experiénce vécue du Noir], developed by the Martinican psychiatrist Frantz Fanon. We hope that the theorist’s considerations can contribute to contemporary discussions about the structuring of methodological approaches in psychoanalytic research, expanding the limits of the theory from its undeniably political aspect.