The role of projective identification in constructing the “Other”: Why do Westerners want to “liberate” Muslim women?

Abstract

This commentary offers a cultural psychological understanding of the traditionally psychoanalytic notion of projective identification to explore the ironic way that majority and minority cultures can influence each other. In the target paper (Wagner, Sen, Permanadeli, & Howarth, 2012), the Western gaze operates ironically by constructing minority Muslim women as needing liberation. This leads to their resistance, through increased religious observance, which requires giving up their individual freedom. Understood as a circular and monological process of projective-identification designed to protect off-limit areas of meaning making, dialogue requires each culture to take ownership of these areas.