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Discursive Psychology and Social Practices of Avoidance

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Discourse, Peace, and Conflict

Part of the book series: Peace Psychology Book Series ((PPBS))

Abstract

This is a chapter about the contribution of discursive psychology to researching social practices of avoidance (gaps, silences, ambivalence) in contexts of rapid social change. I open the chapter with a description and discussion of discursive psychology’s main tenets. I then move on to explore the production of the essence of the communist social past in one of the most controversial texts of the Romanian post-communist transition (the Tismăneanu Report condemning communism in Romania). I place emphasis on one particular aspect—the relationship between social repression and resistance in constructing communism as Other, not quite “us.” Finally, I highlight the relevance of discursive psychology for peace psychology, and show how discursive psychological research can provide significant insights to understanding the social impact of discursive and textual practices around topics or feelings that are too “difficult” to discuss but that, nonetheless, matter for communities that aspire to come to terms with an unjust past.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For more details on the structure, scope, and reactions to the Tismaneanu Report, see Ciobanu (2009), Cesereanu (2008), Tănăsoiu (2007), and Tismăneanu (2007a).

  2. 2.

    As Brockmeier (2010) argues, what is lacking from the archive model of memory is a perspective on “human beings as persons who remember and forget, embedded in material, cultural, and historical contexts of action and interaction.” (p. 9).

  3. 3.

    In a different, yet related, context see Tileagă (2015) for the relevance of “social repression” in the analysis of extreme prejudice against ethnic minorities.

  4. 4.

    See also Frosh (2010) on the implications of drawing upon psychoanalysis “outside the clinic” and the contributions in Stevens, Duncan & Hook (2013) on the role of psychoanalytic vocabulary for working through the socio-historical trauma of apartheid racism.

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Acknowledgments

I am grateful to John Wiley & Sons, Routledge, and Cambridge Scholars Publishing for permitting me to reproduce and adapt material published elsewhere.

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  1. Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK

    Cristian Tileagă

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  1. Cristian Tileagă
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Correspondence to Cristian Tileagă .

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  1. School of Psychological and Social Sciences, York St John University, York, UK

    Stephen Gibson

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Tileagă, C. (2018). Discursive Psychology and Social Practices of Avoidance. In: Gibson, S. (eds) Discourse, Peace, and Conflict. Peace Psychology Book Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99094-1_14

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