The Library
Narratives, ontological security, and unconscious phantasy : Germany and the European myth during the migration crisis
Tools
Tools
Tools
Gellwitzki, Nicolai and Houde, Anne-Marie (2023) Narratives, ontological security, and unconscious phantasy : Germany and the European myth during the migration crisis. Political Psychology . doi:10.1111/pops.12869 ISSN 1467-9221. (In Press)
|
PDF
WRAP-narratives-ontological-security-unconscious-Germany-European-migration-crisis-Houde-2022.pdf - Published Version - Requires a PDF viewer. Available under License Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. Download (179Kb) | Preview |
|
![[img]](http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/style/images/fileicons/application_pdf.png) |
PDF
WRAP-narratives-ontological-security-unconscious-phantasy-Germany-European-myth-during-migration-crisis-Houde-2022.pdf - Accepted Version Embargoed item. Restricted access to Repository staff only - Requires a PDF viewer. Download (479Kb) |
Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12869
Abstract
This article synthesizes scholarship on narratives and Kleinian defense mechanisms against anxiety to develop a framework that enables a nuanced understanding of ontological security-seeking dynamics in times of crisis. Using the case study of the German narrative of the European Union during the so-called migration crisis of 2015, this article engages with the broader question of how unconscious phantasy influences and guides decision-making processes on a collective level as well as the question of how exactly narratives help subjects to manage anxiety to maintain a sense of ontological security. We show that, in the case of Germany, the EU offers a highly affective political myth that has guided both the decision-making of the government during the crisis and the construction of German self-identity narratives by attempting to introject the good part-object of “Europeanness.” Crucially, German self-identity narratives and narratives on the EU were not only inextricably linked but the EU also became an idealized (Kleinian) part-object. During the so-called migration crisis, this fostered processes of projective identification whereby decisions subverting European values and humanitarian narratives as well as general “badness” were externalized and projected onto other member states, most notably the Visegrád states.
| Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alternative Title: | |||||||||
| Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Politics and International Studies | ||||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | Political Psychology | ||||||||
| Publisher: | Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, Inc. | ||||||||
| ISSN: | 1467-9221 | ||||||||
| Official Date: | 2023 | ||||||||
| Dates: |
|
||||||||
| DOI: | 10.1111/pops.12869 | ||||||||
| Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||||
| Publication Status: | In Press | ||||||||
| Access rights to Published version: | Open Access (Creative Commons) | ||||||||
| Copyright Holders: | © 2022 The Authors. Political Psychology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of International Society of Political Psychology. | ||||||||
| Date of first compliant deposit: | 4 August 2022 | ||||||||
| Date of first compliant Open Access: | 13 December 2022 | ||||||||
| Related URLs: |
Request changes or add full text files to a record
Repository staff actions (login required)
 |
View Item |
Downloads
Downloads per month over past year
