The polysemy of an empty signifier: the various uses of Ernesto Laclau’s puzzling concept

Abstract

ABSTRACT The concept of empty signifier is possibly the most prominent among those developed by Ernesto Laclau. However, despite its success among discourse theorists, this notion remains puzzling. It has been used in various contexts and different configurations, and has become polysemic. My goal is to attempt to clarify this concept. To do so, my study is divided into two parts. First, I go back to the psychoanalytic concepts that seem to have informed Laclau’s earlier formulations on the empty signifier. Second, I revisit Laclau’s work to highlight five different uses he made of the notion of empty signifier. In different contexts in Laclau’s work, the empty signifier named (1) a symbol of the pure being of the symbolic system; (2) a particular demand that represents all other particular political struggles; (3) a ‘negative’ symbol that names an antagonistic other; (4) a symbol whose content is problematically poor; and (5) a symbol pointing to an open identity. Whereas I conclude that it is not possible to produce one simple definition of empty signifier, I argue that we should not reject the concept, but rather use it to grasp the complexity of processes of identification.