Description
Ontological (in)security as a pursuit of completeness is a normative process where subjects are produced in binary positions as ‘normal’ and ‘natural’ whereas others as perverse, unnatural, and deviant. This gendered and sexualised normative process is affective: anxiety stemming from ‘incompleteness’ entwines with fear and disgust towards those who are framed as pervert and unnatural. This presentation will contribute to the growing literature on psychoanalytical ontological security debates by bringing fundamental insights from queer International Relations (IR) and studies on emotions in IR. It will be argued that through these insights, psychoanalytical ontological security studies can develop a more nuanced and political understanding of ‘collective subject production’ process.
