Abstract

PARKER, Ian. Micro-Nations of the Self in Times of War: Discourse Analysis and Psychology. Univ. Psychol. [online]. 2013, vol.12, n.1, pp.301-312. ISSN 1657-9267.

This paper outlines problems with contemporary discourse analysis - a focus on everyday conversation, interpersonal interaction, formal sequences, correct explication and disciplinary segregation - problems which replicate general problems with the discipline of psychology (the gaze upon those outside its domain, reduction to the level of the individual, abstraction of behaviour and cognitive processes, claims to interpretative authority, and avoidance of politics as such). Approaches to discursive practice are described from within one of the recently-formed micro-nations which also provide a new way of thinking about the role of psychology in broader social processes. Alternative principles for discursive practice are derived from this description: turning the gaze back onto psychology and the ideological forces that give rise to it; treating forms of representation as sites for the relay of power; tracing how social forms are treated as contextually and historically situated; highlighting forms of discursive practice that open up spaces for interpretation and argument about the nature of interpretation; and connecting contradictory individual affective forces with the realm of political struggle.

Keywords : Discourse analysis; critical Psychology; discursive practice; nation; self; Social Psychology; Politic Psychology.

        · abstract in Spanish     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )