2004-12-15

Interminability

Those of you fortunate enough to read Italian might find this interview of Christophe Solioz by Luka Zanoni interesting. He is working on a metaphor for the international presence in Bosnia-Hercegovina modelled on Freud's concept of "interminable analysis." The metaphor raises a good number of potential questions for exploration: Is "nation building" a form of therapy? Who is being treated, and for what? Do any of the parties willingly see themselves as therapist or patient? Maybe the issue could be raised of whether the insurance program covers the sessions?

Generally I am not fond of psychological metaphors as a way of discussing social phenomena, but this seems potentially very rich.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very interesting take, but I think it's very productive to turn things around a bit, as Eric has alluded to in his comments on the article.

We know the joke about psychoanalysts being crazy... In this case, I think the big question is why the US is feeling it necessary to go around "curing" countries, and when the countries are not "cured" according to the prescribed views of the US they are denounced as pathological.

It seems that this obsession, this need, on the part of many Americans to go around "curing" other countries and societies is a form of escapism and reflects pathologies in their own society. I haven't totally worked this out yet but Solioz's approach is an interesting one that might add something -- and like Eric, I too tend to be skeptical of psychological approaches in general. But how else to explain the f***ed up stuff coming out of the US these days?

Anonymous said...

Very interesting take, but I think it's very productive to turn things around a bit, as Eric has alluded to in his comments on the article.

We know the joke about psychoanalysts being crazy... In this case, I think the big question is why the US is feeling it necessary to go around "curing" countries, and when the countries are not "cured" according to the prescribed views of the US they are denounced as pathological.

It seems that this obsession, this need, on the part of many Americans to go around "curing" other countries and societies is a form of escapism and reflects pathologies in their own society. I haven't totally worked this out yet but Solioz's approach is an interesting one that might add something -- and like Eric, I too tend to be skeptical of psychological approaches in general. But how else to explain the f***ed up stuff coming out of the US these days?

Chip

Eric Gordy said...

Yes, Chip, I think you put a lot of that better than I did. Probably the whole therapy image is a little misleading, but then I am pretty sure that Christophe is not uncritical about it. He came into the area as a peace activist, and I think like a lot people liked the idea of a temporary international administration as a way of cooling things down and stopping the violence. Then also like a lot of people, he became disturbed by the way that the international administration seemed to take on a life of its own and constantly find reasons to expand its power and set local political actors on the margins. The local political actors complied because 1) they had no real responsibility to prevent them from acting irresponsibly, and 2) people kept voting for them largely out of frustration with the internationals. Sumantra Bose and David Chandler both have good takes on this process.
Then the big unexamined question is what are the motivations and self-perceptions of the internationals, and who is treating the therapist?

Eric Gordy said...

Christophe, thank you very much for these very interesting explanatory comments. I think that the whole model really does look like it has tremendous potential. Let me follow up the references you have here (aargh! when the computer gets back from the shop!) and see how this dialogue can be carried on.
Also, I'm happy you have found the blog!
Srecna nova godina and sve najbolje,
Eric