Psychoanalysis, fundamentalism, critical theory and the unconscious: adult education Islamic fundamentalism and the subjectivity of omnipotence

Book chapter

West, L. 2020. Psychoanalysis, fundamentalism, critical theory and the unconscious: adult education Islamic fundamentalism and the subjectivity of omnipotence. in: The Societal Unconscious: Psychosocial Perspectives on Adult Learning Leiden Brill Academic Publishers. pp. 185-201
AuthorsWest, L.
Abstract

The chapter explores the quality of our relationship to knowledge and to the other and otherness. Using a psychosocial lens, and auto/biographical narrative research, fundamentalism, racism and grand academic theory can be seen as a defensive orientation to experience. Defensiveness works at a primitive, pre-intellectual and often unconscious group level. This is contrasted with the history of workers' education, where, in the best cases, dialogue was kept going, sometimes across the profoundest of differences. A theory of self/other recognition is used to explain some of the processes involved.

KeywordsFundamentalism; Marxism; Psychosocial research; Auto/biographical research; Autobiographical research; Adult learning
Page range185-201
Year2020
Book titleThe Societal Unconscious: Psychosocial Perspectives on Adult Learning
Book authorsWest, L.
PublisherBrill Academic Publishers
Output statusPublished
Place of publicationLeiden
EditionHenning Selling Oleson
SeriesResearch on the Education and Learning of Adults
ISBN9789004420250
Publication dates
Print01 Jan 2020
Publication process dates
Accepted01 Nov 2019
Deposited25 Mar 2020
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