Anxious Politics: Contesting Fantasies Surrounding the Removal of Statues of Slavery and the Confederacy

Abstract

Abstract The summer of 2020 saw a global mobilization protesting the murder of George Floyd, during which statues glorifying white supremacy were toppled. Drawing on the narratives surrounding the removal of the Colston statue in Bristol and the Confederacy statues in New Orleans and Charlottesville, the paper examines the role of statues in the construction of political identities and social fantasies through Lacan’s theory of anxiety. For Lacan, anxiety tells us what subjects identify as threatening or familiar is not a reflection of objective circumstances but individual desires. By proposing the concepts of working against anxiety and working with anxiety, the paper examines (1) fantasies that aim to re-establish the old narratives and identities that were challenged in the process of statue removal and (2) practices that dwell in the moment of anxiety in an attempt to repair historical violences. The paper makes three contributions: firstly, to the literature on anxiety, the paper shows why anxiety is not an emotion but a building block of subject formation. Secondly, to the literature on commemoration, the paper demonstrates how statues affirm some identities while negate others, re-producing (racialized) violence; and to the literature on resistance, the paper demonstrates how deeply entrenched anxieties continue to constrict social progress.