Paper short abstract:

In this paper I explore parallels and fruitful congruencies between contemporary theories of relational psychoanalysis and Marilyn Strathern’s theory of sociality and personhood in Melanesia. Theories of relational psychoanalysis enable an extension of Strathern’s approach to address intersubjectivity and the self, the integrated and relationally constituted self.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper I explore parallels and fruitful congruencies between contemporary theories of relational psychoanalysis and Marilyn Strathern's theory of sociality and personhood in Melanesia. Both theoretical positions are concerned with relationality and a conceptualisation of 'object', albeit one is concerned with the intrapsychic world and the other with social life.

Theories of relational psychoanalysis enable an extension of Strathern's approach to address intersubjectivity and the self, the integrated and relationally constituted self. The extension also facilitates the theorising of social systems operating not through the circulation of wealth objects and substance but through the mutual elicitation of non-substantial relatedness and sentiment.

In this meeting, relationality emerges as a fundamental of human being rather than as a cultural particular