Exceeding Recognition

The general understanding of human freedom underlying the concept of alienation will be discussed through some central philosophical influences on Fanon' thought namely, Hegel, Marx and Sartre. Notably, each of these philosophers conceive of freedom differently and this is informed by the way in which each conceives of alienation. With the exception of certain strands within existentialism such (as is the case with Sartre), what binds the above philosophers together is the conviction that alienation can be overcome. As an existential thinker himself, Fanon acknowledges alienation in the form of a lack and as (colonial) despair embedded in colonial society. However, alienation in the form of an existential lack appears as a problem of a free self-consciousness. And as such, Fanon as an anti-colonial thinker is not readily concerned with alienation as a lack. Accordingly, writing at the height of European colonialism, Fanon addresses mainly the issues of alienation and freedom from the perspective of the colonised. As such his philosophical reflections concerns largely the historical questions of race and race-based oppression. This puts him at odds with his European interlocutors who largely write with the European ontological situation in mind. The racial dimension tends to complicate the processes of history and the materialisation of freedom for the colonised. Further race tends to have a an enduring effect upon the condition of oppression. For this reason, it will be argued that for Fanon, there can be no dialectic of recognition in the Hegelian sense when the relation of domination has an additive of colour. Furthermore, there can be no material dialectic of history as Marx proposed would be a universal phenomenon. The paper, thus begins with a discussion on freedom as it arises in Fanon's work. This is then followed by a discussion of the concept as it arises in Fanon's philosophical interlocutors, particularly how Fanon is not only similar to but also different to the above-mentioned philosophers. Thus, the term 'freedom' in Fanon's philosophical thought will be used mainly to refer to liberation and/or freedom resulting from the processes of struggle which then pave the way for the recovery of the black-self. Furthermore, it is used to refer to the enabling social condition that allows for the black-self to flourish and to become self-actional. As an existential thinker, Fanon conceives of liberation and independence in an ethical sense and therefore, as a desirable socio-political state of affairs that ought to be attained by the oppressed.

The details in the above excerpt sets the context of this treatise, as it will centralize its focus on Frantz Fanon and his interpretive psychoanalysis on the vitality of Alienation. Fanon transparently show how pervasively dangerous alienation can be among the colonized populace. Historically, the compartmentalization of the colonial world has been systemically divided into a dichotomous milieu, befittingly placing one group superior over another. As a socially constructed phenomenon within the colonial world, alienation creates an undying paradigmatic Apartheid-based realism. In a similar vein, "apartheid is simply one form of the division into compartments of the colonial world…the world of the dominator, guarded by the army and the police." 2 Fanon embarked on a mission to de-pathologize the Third World peoples whom were trapped in this world of colonialism, while simultaneously, attempting to politicize those whom were oppressed. In this respect, Fanon's rationality of counter-memory enhanced his capacity to think critically and dialectically formulated a commitment, dedication, and responsibility to facilitate dialogue, discourse, and spaces to build capacities to revolutionize the psyche of the "wretched of the earth." According to Judith Butler's book Violence, Nonviolence: Sartre on Fanon, "Fanon's work gives the European man a chance to know himself, and so to engage in that pursuit of self-knowledge, based upon an examination of his shared practices, that is proper to the philosophical foundations of human life." 3 In other words, Fanon wants the European colonizer, the European elite, to see his complicity in systemic violence inflicted upon the colonized.

PhaenEx 8, no. 1 (2013): 59-90.

One of the ways to identify the difficulties that confront persons who are queer, not white, not Western, not male, and in multiple other ways different from modes of identification that have designed and achieved the status of "normal," is that they participate less actively in constructing the significance of their own identities than do those normal others. Because this significance is largely a result of the agency of others-that is, because someone else establishes the meaning of such identities and also the way such persons fit into reality-this significance can be called colonized. Such colonization is a powerful interpretive gesture involving the projection of an identity for an entire group of people, a projection encompassing the past of that identity-the process of its formation-as well as its future possibilities. In thus establishing the terms of past and future, this interpretive gesture renders both the identity and the resistance of the colonized consciousness always already appropriated: both alternatives-to assume the role assigned to it by the dominant group or culture, or to oppose it inverting the hierarchy and celebrating those characteristics of identity that are devalued by the dominant group or cultureare tethered to this powerful interpretive gesture inasmuch as that interpretation is still setting the terms for understanding the reality of the non-dominant group. This control by the dominant group of both options-acceptance and refusal-is the troubling bind of colonization. 1 Shannon Hoff negotiation of the tension between the one truth of the democratic-sovereignty, selfdetermination, majoritarian rule, and the other truth-or, that is, the truth of the other, of heterogeneity, the weak, the suffering, the excluded, the anyone (Rogues 14). In bringing this tension that Derrida discovers at the heart of democracy to bear on the tension in Fanon"s work between the nation and the impetus to internationalism, I will argue that such ambivalence or tension is necessary to political, democratic self-determination; democracy only exists as an irresolvable tension between the determinacy of decision and the indeterminacy required by democratic hospitality to what may make itself known.

F argues that the concept of race interferes with human social and political development because the concept leads to an internalization of inequality in both the black and the white psyche and hence misrecognition. A just social and political organization can only be born out of a struggle in which the black man asserts himself as both psychically and politically independent of the white man and hence as a source and also an object of recognition. This Fanon gives his general diagnosis of the problem of race in Black Skin, White Masks (1952) and proposes a solution in The Wretched of the Earth (1961). Keywords Fanon-Hegel-Race-Colonialism-Liberation Note on Terminology: F uses the term "le Noir" ("the black man") and "le Blanc" ("the white man") as dialectical terms which are in place until a "new humanism" which transcends these categories can be achieved.

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory, 1998

Fanon and Recognition coloring: the Other as canvas Frantz Fanon's identification and problematization of the process by which the colonized individual becomes transformed into a non-human through the explicit author(ial)ity of the colonizer remains among the most significant underpinnings for recent research on identity, in general, and race, in specific (La Capra 1991; Goldberg 1993, 1997; Hall 1996). As Fanon's works suggest, the ideas of "color" and "coloring" must be embellished by investigations that do not only describe the values assigned to different colors, but that also explore the parmaountcy of subjectivity and perception involved in the very act of coloring. Fanon's conception of subjectivity is defined by differentiation, and inherent in coloring is the activity of the subject painting on the canvas of the Other. He poses that liberation of the colonized is linked to contesting the subjectivity imposed by the colonizer, and writing one's own identity. This emancipatory project, is weakened however, by the means of differentiation that he uses-a Manicheanism that reflects the influence of Hegel and Marx-and as a result the accessibility of the transformation of the non-human to human, and the object to subject, is fairly limited. This is particularly problematic in Fanon's representation of gender and sexuality within the colonial condition. Rereading Fanon through a dialogic interpretation, rather than a strict dialectical one, however, renders Fanon's writings more available to a more heterogeneous group, and as a result, better serves as a significant base for studies of race and identity.

Monthly Review, 1967

Oxford Handbook of Modern French Philosophy, edited by Mark Sinclair and Daniel Whistler, OUP, pp. 237–254, 2024

This articles focuses on the concept of “situation” in Fanon’s philosophy, a notion that has seldom been analysed as pivotal in his thought. By functioning as an interface between the descriptive and the praxical, this concept played a transdisciplinary function in Fanon’s philosophy, operating as a “silent mediation” between psychiatry, philosophy and politics. My argument follows the circulations of the concept of “situation” in postwar psychiatry as well as in the philosophies of “existence” of Karl Jaspers, Günther Anders, and Jean-Paul Sartre. The first two sections address Fanon’s discussion of “situational diagnoses” in Fanon’s earliest writings and as a general methodological framework for Black Skin White Masks (1952). It is on the basis of a condensed philosophical genealogy of the concept of “situation” presented in the third section, that the fourth section reexamines the role of meaning in racial identification in “The Lived Experience of the Black”. The final section argues that Fanon’s intervention in postwar philosophy cannot be grasped without understanding the theoretical displacements it effectuated: by situating critique Fanon paradoxically expanded the scope of philosophy.

Existing leaders just use the same template that colonial rulers employed previously. The difference is that, instead of occurring at a transnational level, exploitation has scaled down to the intra-state level in Africa (as certain individuals in high positions live off the land-and its people-while the masses live in poverty). However, it is the duty of the oppressed to remove these shackles, both physically and mentally. As Wood (2004:54) states “how we are thrown into the world is not within our control. Each of us does, however, have some control over what we do with our throwness.” West (2010:111) reiterates this view point by saying that “human beings are free to make or remake themselves. They do not simply fulfill a predetermined essence as, it seems, plants or animals must do. If human beings embrace their freedom, they have the possibility of an authentic existence.” In light of the above, the main goal of this paper is to critically analyse Frantz Fanon’s “Black Skin, White Masks.” More specifically, this paper will deal with his views on language and his psychoanalysis of the relations that take place between black and white people (and between black and black people). The first section of this paper will entail a brief historical overview of his life. The purpose of this is to shed some light on any events that might have shaped his writing or the ideas he put forth. The second section will deal with his work (in the way that was outlined above). A succinct conclusion shall be provided in the end with the purpose of summing up the essay. The sources used to undertake this task were books, journals and the internet.

Revolutionary Moments, 2015

Cultural Critique 113, 2021

Decolonization is one of the most profound political changes of the past century, a transformation with effects touching nearly every part of the world. Alongside the anticolonial movement, it has drastically reshaped how those living in the twenty-first century experience global power and politics. Only recently have scholars begun tackling the conceptual challenge that decolonization and anticolonial struggle raise, perhaps fueled by an increasing awareness of the structural racial inequalities that remain. In his preface to Frantz Fanon's collected works (published in French), Achille Mbembe divides Fanon's reception into three, roughly chronological stages: those who read him for his anticolonial praxis in the 1960s; those who saw him as contributing to the development of postcolonial studies in the 1980s, with its emphasis on race, language, and representation; and those who read him in the 2000s for lessons in counterinsurrection, in a world a generation removed from the Cold War and two generations removed from decolonization (Mbembe 2011). The recent translation and publication of Fanon's psychiatric writings, along with his journalistic political writings and two early plays, offer the occasion for yet another reading, one framed around Fanon's anticolonial praxis and his understanding of psychopolitics. These new materials also raise the question of whether such a reconsideration will simply add another stage to Fanon's reception or whether these psychiatric writings will elucidate something new about the psychopolitics of anticolonial struggle altogether.