The tyranny of 'Relationality’

The paper revisits Fairbairn’s concept of ‘object-seeking’ and situates it within a discussion of colonial object-relations in their everyday manifestation. Through this, it extends its conceptual significance psychosocially, reshaping the psychoanalytic frame by expanding its capacity to envision new, more political alternatives for working with old concepts. It first reviews Fairbairn’s original concept of object-seeking, which he sees as the primary libidinal aim linking individuals to groups, culture, and society. It then proceeds to demystify and de-romanticise the notion of ‘relationality’ often referenced in relation to his work. Working with the concept psychosocially, it attends to the question of: what are the objects being sought, how are they sought, and most crucially, what forms of relationality is reproduced that serve to maintain dominant social relations, which are captured by qualities of ‘brutalism’ (Mbembe, 2023). Furthermore, this paper exemplifies improvising the psychoanalytic frame to offer new ways of seeing and theorising, arguing that such perspectives can only arise from the radical condition of marginality (hooks, 2015a) – both as sites of oppression and as sites of resistance.