ABSTRACT

This paper has two objectives. It aims, firstly, to provide an overview of the explanatory dilemmas that J.M. Coetzee highlights in his acclaimed essay “The mind of apartheid” in respect of existing theories of apartheid ideology. It then makes recourse, secondly, to a series of concepts in Lacanian psychoanalysis so as to shed light on these dilemmas. Two questions seem to particularly vex Coetzee. Firstly, where should we seek to locate agency in respect of apartheid ideology: predominantly on the side of the subject or predominantly the side of structure? Secondly, if we need to appeal both to subject and structure, then how are we to understand the relation between these two factors in the workings of apartheid ideology? By means of Lacanian conceptualisation, the paper supplements and extends Coetzee’s argument according to which the notion of desire is central to understanding the spread and hold of apartheid ideology. The paper then moves on to elaborate a Lacanian understanding of ideological agency which accounts for the relation between subject and structure (or, in Lacanian terms, subject and the symbolic Other) and does so by thinking apartheid as a transaction of desire and/or lack between the two.

摘要

本文有两个目标。首先，它旨在概述 JM Coetzee 在其广受赞誉的论文“种族隔离思想”中针对现有种族隔离意识形态理论所强调的解释性困境。其次，它求助于拉康精神分析中的一系列概念，以阐明这些困境。有两个问题似乎特别困扰库切。首先，我们应该在哪里寻找关于种族隔离意识形态的能动性：主要是在主体方面还是主要在结构方面？其次，如果我们既要诉诸主体又要诉诸结构，那么我们应该如何理解两者之间的关系呢？种族隔离意识形态运作中的这两个因素？通过拉康的概念化，本文补充和扩展了库切的论点，根据库切的论点，欲望的概念对于理解种族隔离意识形态的传播和坚持至关重要。然后，本文继续阐述拉康对意识形态能动性的理解，它解释了主体与结构（或者，用拉康的术语，主体与象征性的他者）之间的关系，并将种族隔离视为一种欲望和/或缺乏的交易。两者之间。