Skin, affect, aggregation : Guattarian variations on Fanon

Saldanha, Arun (2010) Skin, affect, aggregation : Guattarian variations on Fanon. Environment and Planning A, 42 (10). pp. 2410-2427. ISSN 0308-518X

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Abstract

Geography has turned to phenomenology, poststructuralism, and psychoanalysis to understand human bodies in non-Cartesian terms as always-already positioned within social formations. But how exactly do we conceive of the constitution of many bodies at once? Specifically, how do bodies ‘aggregate’ into racial formations? ‘The body’ is not a target of socialization—racializing, gendering, disciplining—as if it sits alone until its senses and viscera are stirred by the environment. Bodies never come alone. Racial formations are from the start phenomena of collective embodiment, not ideological structures that secondarily have corporeal effects. In this paper I will argue that racial difference (like all social relations) is a reality involving the interactions, imaginations, and biologies of human bodies. First, Frantz Fanon’s influential theory of racialization and racial difference is recast in an embodied framework through one of his own examples. This framework will be construed through the concept of affect in Baruch Spinoza, the phenomenology of Michel Henry, and the ‘machinic’ approach to psychoanalysis suggested by Félix Guattari. Aggregation is thereafter explained through the contemporary Spinozism of Antonio Negri and population biology. Finally, the political implications of a machinic theory of race are explored using another concrete example from Fanon.

Item Type:
Journal Article
Journal or Publication Title:
Environment and Planning A
Uncontrolled Keywords:
/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/2300/2301
Subjects:
?? racialisationfanonguattariaffectcolonialismbodyspinozapsychoanalysispopulation biologyenvironmental science (miscellaneous)geography, planning and development ??
ID Code:
62422
Deposited By:
Deposited On:
26 Feb 2013 16:07
Refereed?:
Yes
Published?:
Published
Last Modified:
15 Jul 2024 13:37