%0 Journal Article
%T (Re
%A Marco A. Vieira
%J Millennium
%@ 1477-9021
%D 2018
%R 10.1177/0305829817741255
%X In this article, I critically engage with and develop an alternative approach to ontological security informed by Jacques Lacan¡¯s theory of the subject. I argue that ontological security relates to a lack; that is, the always frustrated desire to provide meaningful discursive interpretations to one¡¯s self. This lack is generative of anxiety which functions as the subject¡¯s affective and necessary drive to a continuous, albeit elusive, pursuit of self-coherence. I theorise subjectivity in Lacanian terms as fantasised discursive articulations of the Self in relation to an idealised mirror-image other. The focus on postcolonial states¡¯ subjectivity allows for the examination of the anxiety-driven lack generated by the ever-present desire to emulate but also resist the Western other. I propose, therefore, to explore the theoretical assertion that postcolonial ontological security refers to the institutionalisation and discursive articulation of enduring and anxiety-driven affective traces related to these states¡¯ colonial pasts that are still active and influence current foreign policy practices. I illustrate the force of this interpretation of ontological security by focusing on Brazil as an example of a postcolonial state coping with the lack caused by its ambivalent/hybrid self-identity
%K ontological security
%K postcolonial subjectivity
%K Brazil
%K s¨¦curit¨¦
%K ontologique
%K subjectivit¨¦
%K postcoloniale
%K Br¨¦sil
%K seguridad ontol¨®gica
%K subjetividad poscolonial
%K Brasil
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0305829817741255