The Other and Other Others: Post-Colonialism, Psychoanalysis and the South African Question
Author(s)
Van Zyl, Susan
Abstract
Discusses post-colonialism, psychoanalysis, and the term “the Other” in South Africa. The author argues the the use of the term “the Other” has been used in a broad range of social, cultural, and philosophical fields in recent years. The source, or major exponent of the Other in the psychoanalytic tradition is Jacques Lacan, which is most common in contemporary thought, but is most difficult to apply to post-colonialism. Many post-colonial writers seem to be aware that an approach more local and less metaphysical than that of Lacan must be sought. Post-colonial questions are, in the author’s view, better served by reconsidering the key ingredients in Oedipus and the additions to it made by Freud’s late work. As a critique, psychoanalysis can present the conditions of possibility of pathologies of the Other in colonial contexts, but only specific cases can provide the particular details required to explain equally particular circumstances.
