Non-Subjects and Nomadic Consciousness

Abstract

The compass points we described for psychologies of liberation have their analogues on the personal, psychological level. Once departing from false universals, unconscious identification with dominant ideologies, and fixed schemas of development, an interior sense of self that finds alternative orientations becomes possible. Here the points of the compass function paradoxically, helping us let go of our usual ground. They do not fix our location but encourage presence, wandering, and even getting lost. Intrapsychically, these paradoxical markers encourage us to welcome what has been kept at bay: unbidden feelings, thoughts, and images; mourning for losses and absences; unsatisfied yearnings for what has not been born; and joy in unexpected places. Between ourselves and others we gain a new footing: to orient toward that which differs from our own experience, to what challenges our ego positions, and catches us by surprise. This re-orientation helps us to emerge from states of dissociation by allowing us to enter those parts of ourselves, our relationships, and our communities that have not been welcomed (Watkins, 2005).

Soy un amasciento, I am an act of kneading, of uniting and joining that not only has produced both a creature of darkness and a creature of light, but also a creature that questions the definitions of light and dark and gives them new meanings.

(Anzaldúa, 1987, p. 103)