New article by Assoc. Prof. Filip Ejdus and Dr. Marina Vulović: “Catharsis, rearticulation of desire and ontological insecurity: The case of Serbia’s attachment to Kosovo”
A new article by GEO-POWER-EU consortium member/researcher, Associate Professor Filip Ejdus (Belgrade University) and Dr. Marina Vulović (University of Potsdam), has been published in the Review of International Studies: “Catharsis, rearticulation of Desire, and Ontological Insecurity: The Case of Serbia’s Attachment to Kosovo.”
The article draws on Lacanian psychoanalysis to advance the field of Ontological Security Studies (OSS). It argues that state actors do not simply pursue stability and security in material terms, but seek to sustain fantasies that soothe a deeper, existential lack. These fantasies channel anxiety into concrete “objects-cause of desire,” which appear to promise wholeness.
The article argues that transformations of desire are mediated through catharsis, which may manifest as metaphor or metonymy. To illustrate this, it examines Serbia’s efforts to (re)articulate Kosovo as its central object of desire. The article contrasts earlier successful articulations of Kosovo as a metaphoric substitute for broader national aspirations with more recent, less effective attempts to frame the north of Kosovo and the cultural heritage submerged in Gazivode Lake as metonymic substitutes for the territory as a whole.
🔗 Read the full article on Review of International Studies.
*Featured image: EPP Group