Description
In this paper I offer a theoretical account of ‘postcolonial ontological security’. I critically juxtapose Fanon’s discussion, in Black Skin, White Masks, of the ‘epidermalisation’ of colonial oppression with Lacan’s theory of subjectivity formation. I argue that the articulation of Fanon’s ‘racial epidermal schema’, alongside Lacan’s ‘mirror stage’, illuminate broader psycho-affective processes related to postcolonial states’ ‘internalisation of inferiority’ and ‘desire’ for Western modernity. I use the example of ‘climate coloniality’, understood as Western states’ control over climate agendas, finance, science, rules, and international institutions, to highlight the analytical potency of postcolonial ontological security, in terms of empirically revealing colonised-coloniser psychological logics and practices still at play in contemporary world politics.
