Ambivalência pós-moderna e produção de angústia: notas sobre um capitalismo afetivo

Abstract

According to Stuart Hall, Félix Guattari, and Zygmunt Bauman, we are living in a period of formation and consolidation of a new dominant form of subjectivity. Hall (2006) speaks of a postmodern subjectivity marked by the “decentering of the subject” (which was once characterized by a fixed and stable identity). Guattari (1996), in turn, points to a “capitalist subjectivation” that becomes hegemonic within what he calls the Integrated World Capitalism, while Bauman bases his discussion on a modernity always in a state of ambivalence. The goal of this research is to analyze how the issue of contemporary subjectivity is addressed in the works of these three authors. More specifically, it aims to analyze (1) how they understand the social conditions for the emergence and consolidation of contemporary subjectivity, (2) which affects, feelings, and emotions are related to this new form of subjectivity, and (3) how the authors understand the political uses of this new form of subjectivity. Regarding an identity politics, these concepts will be important for the development of a process of suffering derived from this excess of demarcations (or the opacity of them), given the volatility of identities; not only of identities but especially of identifications. Thus, this is a retrospective bibliographical review.