François Richard : we are all migrants. on the diversity of libidinal economies

This article suggests that the them of migration be considered as a metaphor for an interior psychical operation : the subjectalizing differentiation from the primary objects, which play a decisive role in adolescence. The issue of the subject is treated within a dialogue with sociologists, anthropologists, historians and philosophers, to the point of envisioning a plural subject open to the diversity of libidinal economies – characterized by the omnipresence of psychical bisexuality and infantile sexuality, here related to gender theory.

Migration introduces one to mixing – ethnic, cultural, but also psychical. A clinical example of adolescent psychical disorder generating elaboration and symbolization of interior strangeness illustrates the hypothesis : we are all migrants.

Adolescence, 2013, T. 31, n°3, pp. 661-672.