Abstract:
The concept of the master-signifier has been subject to a variety of applications in
Lacanian forms of political discourse theory and ideology critique. While there is much
to be commended in literature of this sort, it often neglects salient issues pertaining
to the role of master signifiers in the clinical domain of (individual) psychical economy.
The popularity of the concept of the master (or “empty”) signifier in political discourse
analysis has thus proved a double-edged sword. On the one hand it demonstrates how
crucial psychical processes are performed via the operations of the signifier, extending
thus the Lacanian thesis that identification is the outcome of linguistic and symbolic as
opposed to merely psychological processes. On the other, the use of the master signifier
concept within the political realm to track discursive formations tends to distance the
term from the dynamics of the unconscious and operation of repression. Accordingly,
this paper revisits the master signifier concept, and does so within the socio-political
domain, yet while paying particular attention to the functioning of unconscious processes
of fantasy and repression. More specifically, it investigates how Nelson Mandela operates
as a master signifier in contemporary South Africa, as a vital means of knitting together
diverse elements of post-apartheid society, enabling the fantasy of the post-apartheid
nation, and holding at bay a whole series of repressed and negated undercurrents.
