eprintid: 10205362
rev_number: 11
eprint_status: archive
userid: 699
dir: disk0/10/20/53/62
datestamp: 2025-03-07 07:30:56
lastmod: 2025-03-07 07:30:56
status_changed: 2025-03-07 07:30:56
type: thesis
metadata_visibility: show
sword_depositor: 699
creators_name: Hamity, Ayelen
title: Migrating Analysts, Analysing Migration Tracing Signifiers of People, Places, and Movement
ispublished: unpub
divisions: UCL
divisions: B16
divisions: B14
divisions: J78
abstract: This thesis disrupts conventional understandings of the 'migrant' by examining the
production of subjectivities of psychoanalysts who migrated from Argentina to England.
Situated within the transdisciplinary field of psychosocial studies, it integrates
psychoanalysis, postcolonial theory, and critical migration literature to offer novel
perspectives on migration and subjectivity. While traditional migration studies often
depict migrants as either rational actors or passive reactors to external forces,
psychoanalytic literature offers interpretations on the effects of migration on people
through concepts such as mourning and literature on self-states. However, critical
scholars have called for rethinking these frameworks, critiquing reductive models that
treat migrants as anomalies and fail to capture the complexity of this variegated process.
This research reconceptualises migration by exploring the construction of subjectivity as
a dynamic process shaped by cultural, historical, and symbolic dimensions. Employing a
theoretically grounded yet underutilised Lacanian framework within migration studies,
the thesis adopts a methodology that combines the Biographic Narrative Interpretive
Method (BNIM), free-association interviews, and the tracing of recurring signifiers.
Through the development of an innovative method of analysis, key themes central to
migration – such as cultural identity, transgenerational trauma, language, belonging, and
the figure of the migrant mother – are explored without presuming fixed meanings.
Migration is framed both as a lived experience and as a symbolic space where
subjectivities are negotiated, transcending the binaries that often dominate migration
discourse (e.g., here/there, us/them, then/now). This thesis contributes to
psychoanalysis, migration studies, and psychosocial research by advancing
methodologies for studying migration and offering a conceptual framework that
challenges static representations of migrants. It opens space for a distinctive
understanding of how subjectivity is negotiated across national borders, enriching
theoretical and methodological approaches across disciplines.
date: 2025-02-28
date_type: published
thesis_class: doctoral_md_only
thesis_award: Ph.D
language: eng
verified: verified_manual
elements_id: 2364893
lyricists_name: Hamity, Ayelen
lyricists_id: AHAMI09
actors_name: Hamity, Ayelen
actors_name: Allington-Smith, Dominic
actors_id: AHAMI09
actors_id: DAALL44
actors_role: owner
actors_role: impersonator
full_text_status: none
pages: 290
institution: UCL (University College London)
department: Curriculum, Pedagogy & Assessment, UCL Institute of Education
thesis_type: Doctoral
citation:        Hamity, Ayelen;      (2025)    Migrating Analysts, Analysing Migration Tracing Signifiers of People, Places, and Movement.                   Doctoral thesis  (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).