Walkerdine Communal Beingness and Affect Fouc

8/10/2019 Walkerdine Communal Beingness and Affect Fouc

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Communal beingness and affect

Valerie WalkerdineCardiff University

School of Social Sciences

Introduction

This paper attempts to think about community, communal beingness and relationality in

terms of affect. My engagement ith this idea came in my attempt to understand hat !

as being told my residents of a small ton in South Wales, a ton hich, until "##",

had been dominated by a steel orks, but hich had been forced to close. This closure

had decimated the community, hich ! ill call Steelton, because traditionally the men

of the ton had orked there and iron and steel had been produced there since the end of

the $%thcentury. Suddenly, a ay of life had come to an end. What ! encountered ere

often nostalgic descriptions of life as it had been, contrasted ith incredible feelings of

loss of those ays of being in the present. ! sloly gained the sense that the ties that ere

being described ere of tremendous importance for the sense of life or of continuity of

being ithin the community, that the possibility of being for the residents as deeply tied

up ith ho the community as held together and so held them and that this could be

described, amongst other ays, as an affective process.

!n this paper ! ant to think about the deep sense of embodiment hich as locally and

historically situated in the light of some ork on the dynamics of affect. ! ant to make a

relationship beteen ideas of affective holding hich produces a psychic skin and

community processes hich e&ually provide a holding hich maps onto that psychic

skin. ! ant to suggest that the closure of the steelorks ruptures a sense of the

community's continuity of being in a catastrophic ay, hich are felt and e(perienced in

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a ide variety of ays. )ot only do ! think that it is important to think about affect in this

ay, but ! also suggest that affective processes need to be much more strongly

foregrounded in ork ith communities.

Studying community

There is a long tradition of debate ithin the social sciences about hether it is possible

and desirable to use the concept of community *see, for e(ample Studdert, "##+. While it

is clear that early studies of community ithin sociology tended to understand

community as something stable and fi(ed ithin a location *see -ahl, "## for a revie,

more recent ork has emphasised the importance of social netorks *cf Savage, "##%.

/oever, hile this approach recognises the centrality of relationality *Studdert, "##+, it

is mathematised and formulaic and does little to understand ho relationalities operate

e(cept by specifying that certain linkages e(ist. -ahl *"## calls this 0communities in the

mind', as it allos us to think about the 0personal communities' hich represent people's

senses of their social netorks and relationships. Similarly, 1nderson *$2%3 assumes

that communities are essentially 0imagined'. !n a useful revie of approaches to

community, 4iepins *"### proposes that 0community' should include four themes5

discourse 6 ho community is understood as an idea7 a recognition of diversity and

difference 6 community as action and communication across difference, to subvert any

notion of homogeneity7 relational locations 6 ho identities, place and space shape the

forms and practices of community in different times and locations7 ho the comple(ities

of social life in communities is played out in both material and political ays. What is

marked in all these approaches is a kind of rationalism and essentialism. Studdert *op cit

uses the notion of the Cartesian community to describe attempts to both discuss

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community hile maintaining the primacy of relationship beteen the individual and the

state,creating a situation here community often becomes a empty stage for hat's left

over after the mechanistic demarcations of state8individual 8market8 civil society social

have salloed the social space. /e argues that this is a process hich denies communal

beingness of any role in the construction of sub9ectivity or beingness.

Thus, folloing Studdert, it is perhaps not surprising that, in all of these approaches,

there is no mention of emotional ties or ork and the psychological is reduced to

0imagination' or 0community in the mind' and in any case, the psychological is reduced to

0mind' ith a strong demarcation beteen sub9ects and ob9ects *4atour, $223. !n other

ords, e understand that people have a sense of belonging, e can track their patterns

of association, but the limits of the sociological imagination seem to stop there: !n his

criti&ue of sociological conceptions of community, Studdert *op cit uses the ork of

/annah 1rendt *$2% to argue for the central importance of interrelationality. /oever,

unlike social netork approaches, Studdert's reading of 1rendt recognises that 0ebs of

relations' actually construct 0hos' at their centre, rather than simply assuming a

simplistic concept of a stable pre;e(isting sub9ect ho simply is linked to others.

Maffesoli *$22+ proposes a concept of sociality in hich small socialities based on a

notion of tribes, are created out of a coming together around particular points of

reference. While Maffesoli argues for a ne tribalism and a sense of something ne and

beyond locational communities, nevertheless, he is alone in proposing that these tribes

are linked through affect.

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/oever, in trying to understand then ho people 0belong' or are held together in a

location, other e(planations seem to leave out any sense of affect. )otithstanding the

four very useful aspects of the study of community put forard by 4iepens, ! ant to

argue for the centrality of affect for understanding ho people sharing a locality might be

held together.

The skin as boundary

The ork that ! ant to discuss concerns hat in psychoanalytic terms is understood as

very early e(perience of bodily separation from birth. There are at least to traditions of

ork, one hich comes out of the


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senses and through the bodily memories of containment hich provide the absolutely

basic building blocks of the possibility of sub9ectivity and therefore of an e(perience of

sub9ects and ob9ects. The sensation that one is not boundaried or ith unstable boundaries

can be very frightening indeed. !n this approach, the early containment of an(iety through

literal holding is hat allos an infant to feel that they are ithin their on skin, so to

speak, to feel that they do have affective boundaries hich correspond to physical ones.

Thus, hat is communicated by the caregiver is a comple( relation of literal holding to

psychic holding or containment. !t is this, these authors ould argue, that provides a

sense of continuity of being in hich a young child gradually is able to replace literal

physical holding ith a sense of being hole and continuous. Some traditions of

psychoanalysis refer to this sensation as integration and to the state of spilling out etc as

unintegration *Mitrani, "##$.

Can a community hold its members?

! ant to suggest that hat emerges in conversation ith some residents of Steelton is a

sense of being held in the ay ! have described above. That is, they feel that the

community gives them a sense of continuity of being. ! ant both to e(emplify this and

also to think about the practices and means through hich this is accomplished. !f e

think that the psychoanalytic approach mentioned above is a relational one *Mitchell,

$2%%, in that a sense of continuity is produced in and through relationality, e can also

see that it is through the relations of community that such sensation is also conveyed to

its residents. The issue is ho. We have already seen that sociologists have, after a

fashion, recognised relationality and that Studdert has shon the importance of the


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creation of 0hos' in and through relationality as action. 1 further sense of that

relationality may be gained through the application of psychoanalytic approaches to

groups. >or e(ample, /opper *"##3 argues for hat he calls a 0social unconscious',

hile e could see the ork of the Tavistock !nstitute before $2%2 *Trist and Murray,

$22# and that of Aeleu?e and Buattari *$2% relating to notions of the relational

production and circulation of affect ithin the lifeorld, Their concept of

territorialisation may be particularly pertinent here. They argue that a sense of belonging

to a territory makes people feel safe but that this sense of safety can also restrict the

possibilities for change, hich they gloss as deterritorialisation. Territorialisation makes

people feel safe in a place and yet also restricts the process of change. This is highly

relevant to the discussion in this paper. /oever, Aeleu?e and Buattari stress change

over stasis and this seems to me to be over;simplistic. The apparent stasis produced in the

community of affect for the inhabitants of Steelton is, ! suggest, a ay coping ith

chronic instability and difficulty in hich over hundreds of years, difficult ork

conditions and geographical isolaton have meant the central significance of developing a

strong and safe community. !n their desire to support the possibility of change, Aeleu?e

and Buattari seem to me to minimise this issue, hich e cannot afford to ignore. Thus, !

ill e(plore later in the paper the comple( issues of safety and danger, life and death in

attempts to face change ithin the community. -erhaps then, this relates to my choice of

a metaphor of the body and skin ego rather than the mechanistic trop of a machine, used

by Aeleu?e and Buattari.

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The organisation of space and time

1s Aeleu?e and Buattari stress, e e(ist in time, so that an understanding of place,

Massey *"## suggests cannot simply be as a slice through time. This is particularly

important here because the looking back to a time of safety seems represent a sense of

shoring up a continuity of being as against the ravages of time 6 the incessant

redundancies, the constant threats to steel production, the problems of getting by on poor

ages, that e(isted for many generations. Susan, a oman in her 3#s, tells me about her

childhood groing up in Steelton. !n particular, she recalls the disposition of the houses

and the temporal8spatial relation to them5

then they were all at home but they all then got to know each other.

With the street where I grew up you had your houses in a row, then you had a back

road, I called it and then you had your garden. A back road which was about two cars

wide. And obviously then your coal-bunkers were round the back. So the back roadwas like where everyone congregated. ou!d go up the garden to peg your washing

out and what have you, you!d see ne"t door or two doors down. #h hi ya$ and then

you!d have a natter with them. %hey don!t sit out the back in the summer, we don!thave a game o& cricket out the back in the summer, um everyone would get, you know,

we!d draw hop scotch out the back in the summer, but today most houses then their

gardens are attached to their house and then they!re &enced o&&. So, unless you!re sorto& si" &eet tall you don!t see anyone &rom ne"t door.

And a lot o& the house in ', every there!s only two streets in ' that haven!t gotthe back road, every street has got the back road, then their garden, their garden is

not actually attached to their house, you got this back road and then the garden, so I

think that was why I always &elt that our village then was, was so close.

(ut now with as I say newer houses I don!t think people tend to see, you know, you goout in your garden and you peg your washing out but you won!t see her ne"t door

because, because you can!t see over the &ence, because where I live now is like that, I

mean gardens and my &ence and my &ence and my &ence is about ) &oot, so you know i&I nip in the garden to put stu&& in the bin, or i& I peg my washing out I don!t see

anyone, because I can!t see them.

So I think that has something to do with it.$

What is noteorthy about this for me is the careful description of the arrangement of the

houses ith their back roads, gardens and lo fences. The back road and the terraced


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houses produced itself the spatial disposition hich as added to by lo fences over

hich residents could talk. So, as she says, people congregated and 0nattered' or played

cricket in the summer. We see also her opposition beteen then and no 6 the present

high fences and the absence of sharing produced by a sense of privacy occasioned by

higher fences over hich no;one can see each otheri. Thus, e might say that one aspect

of the former 0community of affect' as the disposition of houses and the height of the

fences hich made possible particular ays of being together. !f e look further at other

aspects that Susan mentions, e see that as a young child, she felt included as a potential

oman in the temporal and spatial rituals performed by the omen hen they talked to

each other outside their back doors. Thus this performance of femininity is one in hich,

as a girl, she as able to 9oin in the affective practices of the omen in hich they used

the space to talk to each other and offer emotional support. )o, again, the absence of

the space signals for her a loss of this kind of affective communication5

eah, that!s right. eah, yeah people did share more with you whether it was

personal problems, you know, I can remember my mother and my ne"t door

neighbour and her mother. (ecause she lived ne"t door to her because it was like alllittle clusters o& &amily, you know, they!d come in, in the evening, or i& it was a nice

night they!d sit out the &ront with their little chairs and what have you and you!d talk

about really personal, and I used to sit there as a little girl, and listen to it all. Andthey used to &ind it really amusing, that, that I wanted to sit there with all the older

ladies. I mean I was only * or + and I!d be sat there listening to them thinking oh and

now and again I!d chip in you know. m, but some o& the things they talked about I

would never dream o& talking about with my neighbours today.Interviewer (Valerie)

ike what

/inancial worries, relationship problems

0ven, even maybe i& they were having se"ual problems with their husband or what

have you, you know. It wouldn!t be anything rude or anything like that, (ut it wouldbe like oh 1od there!s something wrong with him lately you know he won!t leave me

alone and but I don!t I wouldn!t be able to speak to my neighbours like that because

its 2ust 3ello, how are you$ you know and that!s about as &ar as the conversation

goes. I don!t really say a lot else to them. I mean I get in &rom work, get out the car,

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go in the house, #4, a lot o& them do take parcels and things &or me And I mean the

street was 56 houses long but everyone knew each other. I always &elt that everyone

liked each other as well because like I say their husbands worked hard, they were outall day$

So, also the husbands out all day and the ives at home created its on sub community

of omen, ith her statement that the omen ould 0peg your washing out and what

have you, you!d see ne"t door or two doors down. #h hi ya$ and then you!d have a

natter with them!.

Many residents described Steelton as a family. 1t first, ! thought this as being used as

a metaphor, but as the ork progressed ! came to see that this as being used literally in

the sense that it as a kind of informal e(tended family in hich others outside the

family regularly provided &uasi familial support, as in the folloing e(ample given by

Susan5

As with me yeah, you know, when my 'um was in and out o& hospital a lot, you know,

and my &ather was still trying to work shi&ts in the steel works. %o keep the money coming

in, my ne"t-door neighbour she was like a mother to me.

ou know, I!d 2ust go straight in her house, there would be tea on the table &or me and

my brother, you know, she!d give us clean clothes, she!d go

She!d go in our house

eah. I mean, I always said she was like a second mother to me.

(ut that!s the way we were.

m, you!d 2ust walk in, in each other!s houses, you!d leave your door open, you know, i&

times were hard you!d help each other out, you!d give someone a li&t, you!d take em to

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the shops, you!d help em i& they were sick, you!d cook em some dinner or, you know. (ut

today, I don!t &eel like you!ve got that, you can walk down the street now and maybe you

won!t bump into anyone you know.

Martha echoes this sentiment5

So the attitude o& people in 7Steeltown8 is &antastic we!re like one big &amily,.

it!s sort o& we!re all belonging to one another.

!n one sense, e could understand this backards glance as nostalgic as e note that in

Susan's memory the season is summer in hich everyone could sit outside rather than a

harsh inter. /oever, this should not cloud the fact that she is describing a profound

sense of change in hich she is moved from a more communal form of daily life to one

hich feels isolated. !n this sense then, ! am anting to understand the spatial

organisation of the houses and the temporal use of the space outside them as a form of

holding hich offers intense affective containment and hich has become a kind of

0community ego' *! am using this phrase as a reference to 1n?ieu's 0skin ego' to give a

sense of its holding &uality, hich has since been e(perienced as lost in a most painful

ay. This loss is directly associated ith the shift in the rhythms of life associated ith

the closure of the steelorks.

Thus, e see an organisation of space but also of time hich is profoundly gendered. The

men go off to ork at set times and the omen look after the home. This has its on

rhythmical and comforting &uality to it, as Susan tells us.

Many residents tell us that the ork of the steelorks as dangerous and dirty

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It was hairy enough in the works when I frst started, obviously,

because I was er, um, serving my apprenticeship, when I came out o

my time, I worked in the heavy end which, I mean, you have to have

your wits about you, its er, it was a place o, when youve got sort o

er, 30, 40, 50 tonnes o molten metal going above your head in a

weak ladle, its, youve got to have your wits about you like

The men are at ork and the ork is tough7 they come and go and the omen must look

after the home. They are not only the emotional bedrock of the community, hich keeps

it safe amongst all this danger, but they take the brunt of ork problems as they affect the

domestic sphere, !n other ords, they actually keep things orking5

es because I mean I don!t know women take the brunt o& things don!t they, erm I

don!t think there!s many women that don!t handle the &inances.I honestly don!t I 9inaudible: men never ever told their wives how much they earned

and give house keeping but I think the ma2ority o& the women they handle the

&inances.

Interviewer (Valerie)

And when you say women take the brunt o& it what do you, what do you meanInterviewee (Janet)

Well it!s, it!s the women that have got to make the money stretch isn!t it

It!s the women that listens to the kids when they want something you know and err o&course the generation that has been growing up have been used to having what they

wanted.

9inaudible: parents would say ah I don!t think we could a&&ord that and err I think the

impact was on the women as well yes. I mean a mans err pride was hit because hedidn!t have a 2ob but a woman and I think women take it more in their stride.

I think a woman has got more in her than a man. %hey can 9inaudible: &or the knocks

Where a man will sit down and moan about it a woman will shrug her shoulders and

get on with it because she!s got to, she!s got kids she!s got 9inaudible talking overeach other: where a woman will shrug her shoulders and say right now is the time

we!ve got to and that!s it but I think a man, some men sit down and 2ust moanabout it.


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orker, it as common for men orking at the steelorks not to be able to read and to

bring home any forms that needed to be read to their ives.

!n addition Danet, a oman in her +#s, tells me ho she could not possibly leave

Steelton as it provides the basis of her sense of being and belonging, ithout hich life

feels impossible. She refused to move aay from the ton hen her husband suggested

moving 9obs5

I 2ust wouldn!t, I wouldn!t move down there not unlike my brother and my sisters, mybrothers went and my two o& my sisters but I mean I wasn!t interested, I 2ust wasn!t

interested he said he wanted to go and apply &or a 2ob and I said alright and err he

went and he had the 2ob so he come home and he said oh I got the 2ob and I said oh

have you he said yes I said well you!ve got to travel have you he said no I!m notgoing to travel everyday he said we!ll go down there and live well I said i& you want

to go you go but I!m not going 9laughing: and err I didn!t go I said it!s up to you whatyou want to do, you look into it and i& you want to go you go by all means but either

you travel or your down there on your own because I said I!m not coming.

1 further sense of the central importance of the containment provided by the community

is e(emplified by several stories of unillingness to move for ork. These cohered

around the theme of a sense of other communities looking after their on, providing for

us the sense that one is looked after ithin this community.

Even younger people found it difficult to find a valid reason for them that 9ustified for

them the need to move out and be separated from the netork of affective relations that

they kno and value. -hilip, the $ year old son of an e(;steel orker, describes hat

ould count as a valid reason and motive for him to relocate outside his community5

;o, I couldn!t move. I!m a local boy like, I got to stay here. I couldn!t go anywhere else,

no way unless it was a di&&erent country where the sun is like, I couldn!t move like, no

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but I couldn!t do that, I 2ust couldn!t.

1s -hilip says, a key reason for him not to move out is his realisation that he ould not

kno people from other tons and that he ouldn't feel comfortable ith people he

doesn't kno.

-aul, a @@ year old e( steel man, e(plains hy he needed to cope ith his redundancy by

staying local and close to his family and ho he eventually decided he ould actually be

better off by looking after his father hilst relying on state benefits rather than moving

out for ork5

I!m going to be made redundant now this time ne"t year again So I!m back in the

same boat as what I was in =66>... %here is nothing round here, there is no 2obs now

around here,.. andthey want a certain age group because at the end o& the day they?d pay

your pension, they?d pay your sickness, everything else, your national insurance. (ut the

older you are the tendency to more sick you go. Well anybody will not pay &or you to be

o&&, they would rather employ a younger person

I know one person who had to relocate to keep his 2ob, and the stress on him was

unbelievableI will be better o&& on State bene&it, because my &ather is registered

disabled and I had him trans&erred &rom a nearby town to here to look a&ter him because

he su&&ered a stroke while he was there in hospital, so I!ll look a&ter him and

everything.

!n this sense, e see ho, for -aul, it is better to bring his father to the community than

for him to move. 1 very strong sense of the commitment to look after aging relatives

ithin the community as paramount for many respondants.

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Aaniel $ years old, and hose parents are currently on benefits, reflects on hy he has

decided to stay in this ton in case his parents might need him5

(ut I wouldn!t like to 9move: really because I need to stay around here, get a 2ob to help

my &amily like. So that!s I guess why I want to stay round here really. I& I couldn!t &ind a

2ob, I was 2ust going to go in the army, but I don!t want to go knowing like my mother or

&ather were going to need me one day and I ain!t here. So I!d like to stay round here and

get a 2ob. @ound here, so I get married and I!m happy. I& they need me then, they only

got to phone

The sense that it is better to stay put and ork something out rather than move aay for a

9ob, is a central aspect of everyone e intervieed. 1dmittedly, e did not intervie

people ho had moved aay, but nevertheless, it points to the central significance of the

relations hich make up the community.

!ndeed, there as a strong tradition of fathers and other men finding ork for the ne(t

generation ithin the orks, thus also cementing a sense of being looked after. >or

e(ample, Colin, no a youth and community orker, tells of ho a friend of his father

as able to tell him here in the orks there as a 9ob going.

Through these means e form a picture of Steelton as a community hich in the past

provided a set of rhythms of life, of affective relations and practices hich ere deeply

containing and hich e might speculate, contained the inhabitants through a long

history of struggle and difficult conditions. ! say this because the history of the south

Wales valleys, hich have been ma9or producers of coal and steel, is one of great

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hardship, collective struggle, union militancy, left ing politics, defeat *as in the miners'

strike of $2%@ and therefore constant social or collective suffering in hich the closure

of the Steelorks in "##" is simply the last in a series of very difficult times, though it

must be said that salaries in the orks ere high prior to closure and productivity high 6

a point of some pride amongst the orkers. Thus, it could be argued that the production

of the community of affect as absolutely central to the possibility of survival of a

community in such harsh circumstances over such a long historical period.


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Masculinity and pride

Tied in ith the rhythms of the steelorks, is a strong sense of a gendered division of

labour. What had emerged from intervies, is that the dirty masculine body, tired from

ork, is a central affective trope for the community. )ote ho lovingly Dohn, an e( steel

orker, no a community orker, talks of the difference beteen coming home dirty

ith dirt;caked eye lashes and coming home clean in a Morrison's overall. Morrison's is

a local supermarket.

;o, it?s not, it?s clean, do you know what I mean ou come home, there?s no dirt under

your nails, your hands are completely clean, it?s not proper work, when you?ve been

working in industry &or maybe 56 years, and you?re used to coming home with dirt under

your nails, and you?ve got to spend hours getting the dust &rom around your eyes and in

your eyelashes and stu&&, and I suppose it?s en2oyment, coming home knowing you?ve

done a real hard day?s work, you?d come home and you?re knackered, real physical work,

to where you?re walking in the house, with a nice clean pair o& trousers, shiny shoes, shirt

and a tie, and a 'orrison?s? 2acket on. It?s not really proper work. It?s not like coming in

completely knackered and with a &eeling o&, can?t wait to get in the bath and get this o&&.

Come home &rom 'orrison?s? and 2ust sit down in a chair and &eel like probably you

haven?t done anything, nothing worthwhile anyway.

Many men spoke of the pride they felt in their ork in the steelorks 6 pride in a hard

9ob ell done, pride in collective struggle, pride at keeping going in difficult times, for

e(ample. This contrasts markedly ith a sense of hopelessness presented by men ho

cannot find heavy manual ork for their sons *Walkerdine and Dimene?, in prep. 1s Dim,

@+, says5

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I didn!t get back into &ull-time employment As I said, I haven!t done a lot since, well, I

got to be honest with you, it!s about >D years, I!ve been unemployed. I haven!t done a lot

since then because, you know what I mean, well, there is not a lot out there anyway. I 2ust

think I!m ED now, and I think to mysel&, um, I got no hope, you know what I mean. ike

my boy, he!s >D, he!s out o& school. 3e!s struggling to &ind work. What hope have I got,

you know what I mean

We could argue then that the figure of the proud steelorker, dirty from his ork, going

to ork and coming back tired, also presents a certain fi(ed and rhythmical &uality hich

is containing not only for the men for hom this as both the past and the future, but

also for others. While the men do not mourn the loss of difficult and dangerous ork on

one level, on another their talk and actions are permeated ith the effects of its loss. >or

e(ample, men and omen both scapegoat and ridicule young men if they take ork

considered 0feminine', such as supermarket ork, pi??a delivery or cleaning. !t is this

hich produces the circulation of 0shame' *Walkerdine and Dimene?, op cit, Dimene? and

Walkerdine, in press. We have understood this through a theory of collective trauma

*Erikson, $22@, produced by the loss of that hich had sustained life as it as knon.

The social body and collective trauma

When researching issues of collective trauma for this paper, ! came across the ork of

sociologist =ai Erikson *Erikson, $22@. What as striking to me about his ork as the

ay in hich his riting about 1merican communities hich had suffered some kind of

disaster, his statements held many resonances for me. !n particular, the ay in hich he

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rote of the community as a kind of collective body that as more than the sum of its

parts5

0Trauma is generally taken to mean a blo to the tissues of the body; or more fre&uentlyno, to the structures of the mind; that results in in9ury or some other disturbance.

Something alien breaks in on you, smashing through hatever barriers your mind has set

up as a line of defense. !t invades you, possesses you, takes you over, becomes adominating feature of your interior landscape, and in the process threatens to drain you

and leave you empty. The classical symptoms of trauma range from feelings of

restlessness and agitation at on end of the emotional scale to feelings of numbness and

bleakness at the other. Traumatised people often scan the surrounding orld an(iously forsigns of danger, breaking into e(plosive rages and reacting ith a start to ordinary sights

and sounds, but at the same time all the nervous activity takes place against a numbed

gray background of depression, feelings of helplessness, and a general closing off of the

spirit as the mind tries to insulate itself from further harm. 1bove all, trauma involves acontinual reliving of some ounded e(perience in daydreams and nightmares, flashbacks

and hallucinations, and in a compulsive seeking out of similar circumstances'. ""%0one can speak of traumatised communities as something distinct from assemblages of

traumatised persons. Sometimes the tissues of community can be damaged in much the

same ay as the tissues of the mind and bodyG.but even if that does not happen,traumatic ounds inflicted on individuals can combine to create a mood, an ethos 6 a

group culture almost 6 that is different from *and more than the sum of the private

ounds that make it up'"3$


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hich can be damaged 9ust as a physical body. !n the ne(t section of the paper, ! ant to

take this further by reference to the concept of the 0matri('.

The elational matri! and the creation of a collective "ob#ect

The basic assumptions about groups ithin the psychoanalytic tradition come from

>reud's original ideas about a group mind, hich themselves related to the merging social

psychology and the ork of 4e reud cites in his ork on

group psychology *>reud, $2"", >reud orks not ith any group but ith the problem

ith masses and crods 6 an issue very important in an age of revolutions and masses

in industrial cities. !n line ith some current interests in relation to affect, concerns

around at the time ere suggestibility and contagion. The concern as one of the

regulation of uncontrollable masses, ho needed to become the separable individual in

order to be properly governed and to govern themselves as >oucault has argued. 1gain in

line ith others at the time, >reud comes up ith the idea of the group mind and he

attempts to understand ho this might ork using his account of the unconscious. /e

gives a 0formula for the libidinal constitution of groups or at least of such groups as e

have hitherto considered 6 namely, those that have a leader and have not been able by

means of too much 0organisation' to ac&uire secondarily the characteristics of an

individual'5

I1 primary group of this kind is a number of individuals ho have put one and the same

ob9ect in the place of their ego ideal and have conse&uently identified themselves ith

one another in their egoJ *>reud, Vol K!!!, p$$+

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)otice here the attempt to use the libido to understand this and that hat happens in

groups is the submerging of the ego into the ego ideal of the group. This allos >reud to

talk of a group mind and for later analysts to operate as though a group ere a hole and

had therefore to be analysed as hole ; a mind 6 and not the sum of its parts. S/ >oulkes

*>oulkes, $22# coined the term matri( to e(press a sense of the ay in hich a group is

dynamically more than the sum of its parts and can be said to be treating the community

as a hole entity or netork *4atour, $2% or eb *1rendt, $2% , hose dynamic can

be investigatedii.

The group orks on the basis of a set of matri(ial *literally uterine 6 a place here

something is created, Ettinger, "##+ connections, hich allos analysts to talk about the

ays for e(ample that a hole group might form a pro9ection onto something. The point

of this is to understand that the social collapse of the central foundations and modes of

relating *hat Erikson calls a collective trauma threatens not only the ay of life of its

participants but is lived as a threat to the continuity of being hich can be e(perienced

by difficulties in the relational dynamics of the community, that is, in hat Mitchell calls

the relational matri( incorporating intrapsychic and interpersonal realms *Mitchell,

$2%%.

The relational matri( is the ay in hich affective relationality orks ithin this

tradition. We might also note that the term 0matri(' in a more mathematical sense has

been used by >oucault, ho argues poer takes the form of a matri( or a Ltightly knit

grid of material coercionsL in hich e are all embedded as Lob9ects of poerL *>oucault

$2%#, $#@. The task as >oucault sees it in relation to his ork on biopoer is to

understand the comple(ity of the social matri( hich gives our understanding of, for

"$


22/32

e(ample, se(uality, its force.oucauldian sense in

her concept of the 0heterose(ual matri('. We can indeed think of a community of affect in

this ay, but ! suggest that e ould be &uite rong if e ere not to engage ith the

basic and embodied sense of safety provided by the community and its necessity for the

possibility of life for its inhabitants. !t is not 9ust a 0grid of material coercions' that is

tightly knit for these people.

!n this sense, ! ant to focus on the central importance different traditions in thinking

about affect and vitality. We can think of this according to to related but distinct

traditions 6 the >reudian, 4acanian, Aeleu?e and Buattari a(is, hich understands those

connections as produced through a libidinal or vital force and the reud alays posited

both a libidinal force and a death drive, nevertheless, the issue is more about the

particular emphasis placed by each tradition. !n each case, hat is central to the account,

hich might help us ith respect to understanding communities of affect, is the centrality

not so much of the 0transmission' of affect as though it ere a thing but rather the sense

of a force or energy hich is dynamically present ithin the relational matri(. Thus,

relationality orks in these accounts through the organisation of drives and defences

created ithin the matri( itself. /oever, the accounts ere developed in a clinical

setting and can, as Aeleu?e and Buattari have observed, tend to operate in a rather

restricted palette. /oever, hat to me is central about this approach is that the

relational matri( can be understood to encompass the buildings, the time and space, the

""


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practices and figures etc, if e e(tend its remit and basically use the central idea that e

are orking ith an affective matri(ial dynamic rather than a transmission or flo in any

simple sense *ie in this sense not a contagion.

The approach ith hich ! began the paper oes much to an ob9ect relations formulation

hich stresses a basic sense of embodied safety and the production of continuity of being

hich defends against basic an(ieties of not being. ! found this most helpful in e(plaining

to myself the issues of safety hich came up in the material ith hich ! as orking.

/oever, hile e can see ho it orks ith the community as matri( and the defences

against annihilation hich is a central aspect of /opper's approach to group dynamics, it

stresses that safety and continuity over the comple(ities of the plays of life and death. !n

the final e(ample, ! ant to think about this more carefully.

1 final e(ample ! ish to give is about the ay in hich affectively the community

attempts to produce a dynamic hich creates a group pro9ection in order to keep the

community alive.

/inshelood and Chiesa *"##$, argue that the most significant change from the original

>reudian position is the turn to a relational perspective, in this case


24/32

1s /inshelood and Chiesa *op cit state *p, ork influenced by =lein, >airbairn and

others provided a conceptual shift from >reud's early ork to understand people as

fundamentally ob9ect seeking rather than pleasure seeking *thus an(iety replaces libido iii.

-ro9ection, intro9ection and identification implied a to ay relationship ith an e(ternal

and then internal ob9ect. Thus the >reudian take up of the idea of suggestibility through

putting an ob9ect in place of their ego ideal becomes in the ob9ect relation s tradition an

interest in pro9ection, intro9ection and identification through hich the interpersonal

becomes the intrapsychic. Thus people can unconsciously come together as collective

support for each others' defences to build a social defence system hich &uells members

an(ieties hich threaten to become unbearable *$#.

!n this sense, then, the interpersonal, like the flo of affect through ob9ects and bodies is

hat is understood as to be the central analytic process to be understood in the social uses

of ob9ect relations, such as that developed in the post ar period by the Tavistock

!nstitute *Trist and Murray, $22#. !t is this hich allos us to understand ho similar

interests at the same historical moment are taken up differently by the Tavistock !nstitute

and Aeleu?e and Buattari. The latter's starting point is 4acan, ho as e kno, as not

fond of ob9ect relations and hose 0return to >reud' placed the flo of desire *ie libidinal

flos as central. Thus, the move from =lein onards in the


25/32

Buattari. Where the former see defences against an(iety as the central issue to be

understood, the latter see a libidinal flo, a forard looking force, in hich creativity is

immanent. ! suggest that hile there are many similarities beteen the to positions 6 far

more than might usually be acknoledged, this is a central difference 6 do e see

defences against an(iety about death, unbearable an(ieties about not e(isting, or do e

see the potential for a creative force, something to be built or made possible by the

libidinal flosN

!f e think of the central ob9ect of the ton, the Steelorks, ithin the ob9ect relations

tradition, e ould understand that the material ob9ect carries an affective charge through

hich people's relation to it can be understood. Aeleu?e and Buattari *$2% refer to the

idea of an assemblage in very similar terms, giving the e(ample of 0home', hich could

be an arrangement of furniture, or the nest e make in an airline seat by bringing ! pods,

books, ater etc or a song sung to a child before they go to sleep.

Thus, the steelorks is both a material ob9ect but also an affective ob9ect, the central

focus of the relations of the community. !t is created through the community's pro9ections

onto it or, to use Aeleu?e and Buattari's terminology, it is an assemblage. Thus, e might

see that this pro9ection itself is central to the sustaining of the community, as the affective

practices ! have outlined are entirely based around the centrality of its going on being.

The community is a massive assemblage based around the steelorks. !f this is correct,

the closure of the steelorks is not only an economic catastrophe, it is an affective one,

one hich e might call a historical and collective trauma *Aavoine and Baudilliere,

"##@ because everything that sustains a sense of aliveness and safety is based on the

pro9ected ob9ect of the steelorks. The death of steelorks brings ith it fears of

"


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annihilation of the community matri( or social body hich are played out in a number of

ays. We see it, ! suggest, in the sense of shame in the 0redundant' men, the ton's

pro9ections onto the young men ho take up 0feminine' 9obs, hich further terrifying

signal the loss of the masculine dirty but proud steelorker. !n other ords, they signal

death. We find it too in the higher fences, hich embody the loss of the sharing of

community. The sense that nothing orks anymore and has to be remade is a profound

and difficult challenge.

>inally then, let me cite an e(ample given to me by Matha in her +#s. We ill remember

that she told me that in Steelton there as a 0great chain of being' hich as first

broken by the 0death' of the miners folloing massive mine closures and then by the

steelorkers.

Well the &irst link to go was the mines. (ut that was ok a&ter a while, it was devastating

&or the miners that was ok really because then some o& em could get work here. In thesteelworks. Some people moved away but a lot o& em came back as well. A lot o& the

miners came back and the second chain, the second link in the chain was (ritish Steel.

When it was announced it was closing.

And to me that was a death knell in the town. And everybody stood still, oh my god. And

it was like, i& that chain was broken and it was &lung away and everybody 2ust, they 2ustdidn!t know what to do none o& us really.

She recounts an attempt to mend the links in the chain of being. Steelton, she says, is

like a phoeni( rising from the ashes, but the issue is ho to make it rise. /o to make it

0bounce back' or be 0don but not out'. This comes in the form of a pro9ect to bring

Christmas lights to the ton, the centre of hich has been decimated as there is a huge

reduction in money available for spending in the local shops. This is ho she tells the

story of a plan to bring Christmas lights to the ton.

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@eally I mean erh the council hadn!t put an Christmas lights up here &or F years. And we

were the only town without lights and two o& the girls that worked here put a piece in the

paper and asked people to go to a meeting to raise &unds &or the lights .So we went along.And my husband said I hope you are going because you have moaned enough about it. I

said yes I!m always on to the councilors. I said I they stopped dodging me now when they

see me coming so we went along to the meeting out o& the whole o& Steeltown we had >5people there. %hat included the 'ayor and the 'ayor!s driver. Anyhow we &ormed a

committee out o& that and the &irst year we raised G=F,666 and had the electrics put

through the town. Cos the electrics was no good, and we bought the strings o& lights andwe bought a stainless steel Christmas tree which cost us over GD,666 and we had umm we

had to purchase a lamp post to put it on we had to pay the council money &or planning

permission to dig a hole.eah to put the lamp post. %hen down the bottom end, down at

Heacocks and that there was nothing &or us to attach the lights to so we bought si" postsand put those in. And we got lights right &rom down the bottom end o& town right up to

here to the market, we got the Christmas tree outside the library. Which we were we?re

only the second people in 1reat (ritain to have, and we!ve 2ust added on year to

year.We!ve got over >66 Christmas trees over the shops. . and we got 5 men that goround every year and put over >66 Christmas trees up we now purchased a welsh dragon

and we put that down at the end o& the town there. So as you!re coming in &rom thebottom end you can see the dragon, we!ve purchased the greetings &rom .eah Seasons

greetings &rom Steeltown.And we put that over Weatherspoons. So this year last year we

put a lot o& electrics in again but this year the money isn!t so &orthcoming up to now

whether we can speed things up and get enough money I don!t know but over the lastthree years we!ve raised about G)6,666.

#h it is and when we switched the lights on . /rom Woolworths right the way through the

town, right to the bottom you couldn!t move . It was literally 2ammed packed. @ight the

&ull length &rom into the town all the way down. So so we had umm I can never think o&the man!s name he he!s broadcaster he is Welsh and I can!t remember, never remember

the man!s name he came and switched the lights on . 0rh we had entertainment right

through the day. So I was out on the town actually &rom hal& past seven in the morning

and I &inished eight o!clock on the night. I was absolutely shattered but it was wonder&ulto see that . %o see the people!s &aces when they actually switched on those lights,

because what we done, all the town lights were switched o&& and we put the tree on &irst

cos nobody had ever seen the tree. So we put the tree on &irst and that was &abulous andthen once the people had got used to that then we switched the lights on right through the

town. And it it was absolutely wonder&ul it was the children they were wonder&ul. ust to

watch their &aces 2ust children = 5 E ) had never seen lights in Steeltown. %hey had to goelsewhere to see lights .And it was absolutely marvelous. eah it it is it is it it people said

how lovely it was to come down town shopping at Christmas cos because the lights are

on &rom we always switch them on the last Saturday in ;ovember.

She tells me that they also ran car boot sales and bingo to raise more money because it

as impossible to get money out of the council. !n addition to this they have since run

other activities, also by raising money.

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The affective practices that she presents to me suggest that there are established ays for

coping ith loss and grief and that these must be countered by aiming to bring life back,

to mend the link in the chain of being, to allo generational continuity to happen. 4ight

in the darkness of the Christmas lights is deeply symbolic of ne life and therefore

triumph over the death of the ton and it is through the creativity immanent in the loss

that allos the community to be brought back to life and therefore for the chain to be

mended and life to go on. Thus e can understand the lights as a pro9ected ob9ect created

to defend against the fear of annihilation represented by the break in the chain of being.

Thus the act is one hich carries a libidinal charge *the vital force in Aeleu?e and

Buattari's terms hich aims to recreate or shore up a disintegrating matri(, to prevent its

collapse and to breathe ne light and life into it. We can stress it both as a creative act

and as a defensive act and it dramatises for us the profoundly difficult, life and death,

struggle confronting the tonspeople as they struggle to keep their community of affect

alive and to ensure that it ill be there for the ne(t generation.

!n this sense ! argue that understanding a community such as this as a relational matri(

allos us to understand that its relational matri( orks as a psychic skin hich holds its

inhabitants in place, in the great chain of being that ensures their continuity over time.

The idea of the matri( or the assemblage allo us to think of the ays in hich the

energetic forces ork to create and potentially destroy a community and allo us to

understand the central importance of affect for any study of a formal or informal

collective form. !n this sense, engaging ith the rupture to the continuity of being

presented by the closure of the steelorks allos us to think about the central

importance of the community as a pro9ected ob9ect hich holds and therefore presents us

"%


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ith central issues for an understanding of change as deterritorialisation. !nstead of

thinking simply of change as creative potential perhaps e also need to understand it as a

play of light and dark, life and death. While Aeleu?e and Buattari stress the importance of

understanding hat can be created by the forces of desire, as in the e(ample of the lights,

they perhaps underestimate the central significance of the production of an affective

community as a defensive possibility of continuity in a sea of enforced change. Most

regeneration policies implement change in a top;don fashion, by assuming hat the

community needs. !n this sense they take from that community its on possibility of

collective agency, its on sense of dealing ith the an(ieties about death and the

creativity of ne life. The community is at a threshold *Aeleu?e and Buattari, op cit. !n

understanding the possibilities for change for Steelton, e must surely understand the

centrality of affect for its continued possibility of being and indeed for the possibility of

its transformation.

eferences

1nderson < *$2%3 !magined communities, 4ondon Verso

1rendt / *$2% The human condition, Cambridge, Cambridge University -ress

1n?ieu A *$2%2 The skin ego, )e /aven, Hale

and Baudilliere DM*"##@ /istory beyond trauma

Aeleu?e B and Buattari > *$2% 1 thousand plateaus,Minneapolis, University ofMinnesota -ress

Erikson = *$22@ 1 ne species of trouble e(plorations in disaster, trauma and

community, )e Hork, WW )orton

Ettinger < *"##+ The matri(ial borderspace, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota -ress

"2


30/32

>oucault M *$2%# -oer8=noledge5 Selected !ntervies and Fther Writings $2";

$2. Edited by Colin Bordon. )e Hork, -antheon

>oulkes S/ *$22# Collected papers of S/ >oulkes, 4ondon, =arnac

>reud S *$2$3 Totem and Taboo, Standard Edition of the Complete Works of Sigmund

>reud S *$2"" Broup psychology and the analysis of the geo, 4ondon, !nternational4ibrary of -sychoanalysis

>reud, Vol K!!!, 4ondon, /ogarth -ress and !nstitute of -sychoanalysis

/inshelood and Chiesa M *"##" Frganisations, an(ieties and defence, 4ondon,

Whurr

/opper E *"##3 The social unconscious5 selected papers, 4ondon, Dessica =ingsley

Dimene? 4 and Walkerdine V *submitted 1 -sychosocial 1pproach to Shame,Embarrassment O Melancholia amongst Unemployed Houng Men and their >athers,

submitted to Bender and Education

=lein M *$2%+ The selected Melanie =lein *D. Mitchell ed , /armondsorth, -enguin

=leinman 1, Aas V and M 4ock eds *$22 Social suffering,


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Trist E and Murray / *$22# The social engagement of social science5 a Tavistock

anthology, Volume $ the socio psychological perspective, 4ondon, >ree 1ssociations

Walkerdine V and Dimene? 4 *in prepHoung unemployed men and the psychosocial

impact of social catastrophe in the south Wales valleys

Walkerdine V *$22# Fn the regulation of speaking and silence, in Walkerdine V

Schoolgirl >ictions, 4ondon, Verso

3$


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ifences are also significant in ork on the decline of 0traditional' communities revieed by Savage,

"##%.ii/e developed this idea by reference to the ork of the Berman neurobiologist =urt Boldstein, ho

argued that the nervous system could be understood as a hole and not as the sum of individualneurones. /e called this a netork and the individual neurone a nodal point in the netork.iii1n(iety replacing libido is a ma9or difference from Aeleu?e and Buattari, for hom libido or life

force is the central aspect of affect. To introduce an(iety is to bring in both a relational component butalso places it in the realm of loss and thus that hich Aeleu?e and Buattari anted to move aay

from.

Walkerdine Communal Beingness and Affect Fouc

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