Short Abstract

What is the contribution that a psychological anthropology can make to an understanding of increasing emotional polarisation in contemporary cultural and political debate? We invite papers that explore the value of classic concepts such as schismogenesis and more recent interventions.

Long Abstract

Polarisation is inherently a question of reciprocal affect and marks the open return of raw emotion to a political sphere that was until recently dominated by a spirit of technocratic ‘best practice’. This draws our attention to the processes through which emotions emerge as social forces within and between people and groups. This is territory where a distinction between the psychological and the social that has long bedevilled anthropological analysis, becomes problematic and hard to sustain. Anthropology and psychology and/or psychoanalysis have already provided fertile grounds for interdisciplinary thinking and practice about relationships. Bateson’s concept of schismogenesis, referring to cybernetic as well as social processes, and the systemic analysis of the development and reproduction of binary differentiations in relationships, provide examples of a theoretical tradition that has received much attention in the contexts of conflict and suffering in families. Similarly, other traditions derived from psych-disciplines that have already been integrated into ethnographic work may also provide a basis for deeper understanding. Does a ‘person-centred’ approach to ethnography, inspired by humanistic psychotherapy, provide a basis for understanding polarisation, that goes beyond the explicit or implicit demonisation of those who are attracted to ‘extreme’ positions, for example? Do psychoanalytic concepts designed to understand the appeal of Othering, such as the concept of ‘splitting’, help us understand the emotional dynamics of group formation based upon denigration of the Other? What might ethnographers learn from the psychological or psychoanalytic study of groups and organisations? In this panel, we invite empirically based reflections on the ways in which psychologically informed ethnography can aid a deeper understanding of social relationships. In particular, we invite papers that draw on earlier work from psychologically informed anthropological traditions which might shed light on the dynamic of polarisation and which in this way might help us understand contemporary manifestations.

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