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Abstract
Jacques Lacan coined the neologism ‘extimacy’ (extimité) in order to theorize two interrelated modes of psychical apprehension: first, how our most intimate feelings can be extremely strange and Other to us. Second, how our feelings can be radically externalized on to objects without losing their sincerity and intensity. Attending to the socio-spatial dimensions of extimacy, this paper provides insight into the importance of topology in Lacan's work. In so doing, the paper challenges the enduring doxa in geography that Lacanian theories ultimately devalue the intricacies and liveliness of space. To substantiate this claim, I explore the extimacy of the most popular vehicle accessory in the USA since the 1980s' ‘Baby on Board’ signs: the ‘ribbon magnet’. Specifically, I elaborate the extimate contours of two ribbon magnet slogans, ‘Half Of My Heart Is In Iraq’ and ‘I Support More Troops Than You’. Affirming a recent critique that social and cultural geographers have ‘tamed’ psychoanalysis, that is, shied away from working through psychoanalysis's allegedly unseemly conceptualizations of politics and subjectivity, this paper suggests that we have yet to catch up with some of psychoanalysis's most fundamental and valuable theorizations about space itself.
C'est en proposant de théoriser sur deux modes d'appréhension psychique interreliés que Jacques Lacan crée le néologisme «extimité». Le premier mode décrit comment nos sentiments les plus intimes peuvent être pour nous extrêmement étranges et Autres. Le second décrit comment nos sentiments peuvent de manière radicale être externalisés sur des objets sans renoncer à la sincérité et à l'intensité. Cet article examine les dimensions sociospatiales de l'extimité et permet de mieux comprendre l'importance que prend la topologie dans l'œuvre de Lacan. L'article met ainsi en cause la doxa persistante selon laquelle, en géographie, les complexités et la vitalité de l'espace sont dévalorisées finalement par les théories lacaniennes. Pour justifier ce point, j'aborde l'extimité de l'accessoire automobile parmi les plus populaires aux États-Unis depuis que le panneau à ventouse «Bébé à bord» est apparu dans les années 1980: les «rubans aimantés». Plus précisément, je dresse les contours de l'extimité de deux logos que l'on retrouve sur les aimants, soit «Half Of My Heart Is In Iraq» (mon cœur est à moitié en Irak) et «I Support More Troops Than You» (je soutiens plus de combattants que vous). Je m'appuie sur la critique formulée récemment à l'égard de la «domestication» de la psychanalyse par les géographes spécialistes des questions sociales et culturelles qui, dans leurs travaux, n'ont pas tenu compte des conceptualisations apparemment infondées sur la politique et la subjectivité issues de la psychanalyse. L'article laisse entendre que nous n'avons pas encore réussi à prendre connaissance de certaines théorisations psychanalytiques fondamentales et dignes d'intérêt portant sur l'espace.
Fue Jaques Lacan quien acuñó el neologismo ‘extimidad’ (extimité) para poder teorizar sobre dos modos interrelacionados de percepción psíquica: primero, cómo nuestros sentimientos más íntimos nos pueden parecer extremadamente extraños y Otro. Segundo, cómo nuestros sentimientos pueden ser exteriorizados, de forma radical, sobre objetos sin que pierdan su sinceridad e intensidad. Atendiendo a las dimensiones socio-espaciales de la extimidad, este papel nos permite comprender mejor lo importante que es la topología en el trabajo de Lacan. Al hacerlo, el papel cuestiona la opinión sostenida en la geografía de que, en última instancia, la teoría de Lacan subvalora la complejidad y la vivacidad del espacio. Para corroborar este argumento, exploro la extimidad del accesorio para vehiculos más popular en Los Estados Unidos después del cartel que decía ‘Baby on Board’ de los años 80: el ‘imán de cinta’. En particular hablo de la forma extimada de dos esloganes de imanes de cinta: ‘La mitad de mi corazón está en Irák’ y ‘Yo apoyo más tropas que usted’. Como afirmación de una crítica reciente que dice que los geógrafos sociales y culturales han ‘domado’ al psicoanálisis, es decir, tienen miedo de enfrentar las supuestamentes impropias conceptualizaciones de política y subjetividad del psicoanálisis, este papel sugiere que todavía nos queda ponernos al día con algunas de las teorizaciones más fundamentales y valorables del psicoanálisis sobre el espacio en sí.
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to the following people for their invaluable insights, encouragement and provision of space for talking and thinking: Nick Blomley, Alex Clapp, Owen J. Dwyer, Susan Hanson, Stephen Healy, Geoff Mann, Eugene McCann, Haripriya Rangan and Mary Thomas. I also thank the two anonymous referees of this paper; Chris Philo for his canny and generous referee's comments that significantly improved the final version of this paper; Rob Kitchin in his role of editor; and Melinda Kingsbury to whom I, with this paper, extimately owe and give everything.
Notes
1 In making this claim, I deliberately avoid delimiting precisely how the problems of the taming of psychoanalysis play out in individuals' specific works. Such a task requires a separate paper. More importantly though, such a line of critique would do well to proceed from, rather than precede careful theoretical groundwork.
2 For an online history of Magnet America see: < http://www.magnetamerica.com/media.html>.
3 See < http://www.troopsribbon.com>.
5 The spade symbol refers to how Saddam Hussein was the Ace of Spades in the US military's most-wanted Iraqi military cards. Notably, the website < http://www.militarymagnets.com/index.html> not only sells a pack of these cards but also ‘Tough Lookin’ Marine Ts [T-Shirts]' depicting slogans such as ‘Peace is dead (you're next)’ and ‘Give War a Chance! Happiness is a Mushroom Cloud’.
6 I should note that any resemblance of the ribbon magnet to any actual Möbius strips—Real, Imaginary, or Symbolic—is entirely coincidental.
7 To be sure, the question of how Lacan conceptualizes the relationship between topology and structure is an extremely important and complex one. Again, doing justice to this question requires at least another paper. I therefore confine my discussion to the above broad theoretical points. One way, however, to further explicate the relationship between Lacanian structure and topology is by exploring the spatial dimensions of extimacy—which is precisely one of the main goals of this paper.
8 Sing all a green willow must be my garland. Let nobody blame him, his scorn I approve (Othello, 4.3.48–50). One is also reminded of numerous other extimate objects such as HIV/AIDS awareness ribbons, medals, rosary beads, commemorative poppies, flags, Everton F.C. scarves, etc.
10 Evidently, I am skipping over the important conceptual intricacies of how psychoanalysis via Žižek differentiates between the spatialities of the ‘universal’, ‘particular’ and the ‘singular’. From this Lacano-Hegelian perspective, contra Sharp, Philo and Parr, Oedipalization does not take place on a ‘deep’ or ‘superorganic’ level, rather, Oedipalization takes place as ‘concrete universality’ (Žižek Citation2000b: 235–241). Again, an adequate explication of why this conceptual manoeuvre is a specifically Freudian/psychoanalytic manoeuvre demands another paper.
13 See < http://blondejustice.blogspot.com/2005/01/yellow-magnet-ribbon-sticker-thingees.html>. In making this point, I am indebted to an anonymous reviewer who brought to my attention how people's enjoyment of subverting or poking fun at the support our troops magnet ribbons could easily cause aggressiveness in those people attached to the ribbon magnets, troops and/or the war on terror.
14 Here, form is not to be taken in the Kantian sense as that which frames, opposes or excludes particular contingent contents, but rather, in the Hegelian sense whereby ‘the very form, in its universality, is always rooted, like an umbilical cord, in a particular content—not only in the sense of hegemony (universality is never empty; it is always coloured by some particular content), but in the more radical sense that the very form of universality emerges through a radical dislocation, through some more radical impossibility or “primordial repression”’ (Žižek Citation2000a: 110).