Abstract
The purpose of this article is to draw on psychoanalytic, particularly Lacanian, theorizing, to examine individual learning as an empowering encounter with fundamental lack. Specifically, I explore learning as an imaginary construction of the learner’s self that invariably fails thereby providing opportunities for the experience of empowerment and liberation. I discuss the implications this has for how we conceptualize and experience learning as an emancipatory discourse in organizations.
Highlights
Prior research has found that learning in organizations changes what we do and how we see things around us (Hardless, Nilsson and Nulden, 2005) and who we are (Fletcher and Watson, 2007)
The aim of this paper is to build on these insights and explore learning further with regard to its relation to discourse, identity work, and emancipation by developing a psychoanalytic perspective on individual learning
I draw on the theories of French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan who built on Freudian insights to focus more extensively on language and how individuals consciously and unconsciously construct the self in discourse (Lacan, 2001)
Summary
Prior research has found that learning in organizations changes what we do and how we see things around us (Hardless, Nilsson and Nulden, 2005) and who we are (Fletcher and Watson, 2007). I draw on the theories of French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan who built on Freudian insights to focus more extensively on language and how individuals consciously and unconsciously construct the self in discourse (Lacan, 2001). This perspective was chosen because it extends prior psychoanalytic theorizing on learning in organizations (Vince, 2002; Vince and Saleem, 2004). For Lacan, the individual is only ever close to being authentic when failed fantasies of the self are rendered transparent
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