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Collective Consciousness and Gender Collective Consciousness and Gender Alexandra Walker Collective Consciousness and Gender Alexandra Walker Centre for Social Impact UNSW Australia Sydney, NSW, Australia ISBN 978-1-137-54413-1 ISBN 978-1-137-54414-8 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54414-8 Library of Congress Control Number: 2018947180 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and trans- mission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Yuri_Arcurs/gettyimages This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Limited The registered company address is: The Campus, 4 Crinan Street, London, N1 9XW, United Kingdom This book is dedicated to my mother, Anne Walker; the wisest person I know. Foreword This highly original book claims as well as demonstrates that conceptual- izing the international community as a global collective self with collec- tive consciousness provides valuable understandings as well as new research questions about its laws, limitations, and future opportunities. Adopting the ‘sociology of human consciousness’ approach—developed by George Herbert Mead, Walter Buckley, Tom R. Burns and Erik Engdahl, and Norbert Wiley, among others—the book shows that global collective consciousness operates as a ‘public mind’ of the world commu- nity, in particular, its global legal community with diverse networks. The collective consciousness is understood as a reflective, social activity, devel- oped through language, group communication, collective representations (including self and other conceptions), institutional and cultural arrange- ments, and processes of self-reflectivity. The book draws also on the work of psychiatrist Carl Jung and post-Jungians to explain ways in which a collective self consists of conscious processes as well as unconscious mechanisms which derive from (are based on) archetypes, established collective phobias, compulsions, and defense mechanisms. Collective consciousness is defined in this book as the acquired, shared awareness and reflectivity that are generated through interactions among members of a group or collective. The collective produces its identity as well as distributed and shared mental states, emotions, and experiences of group participants. At a certain level of cohesion and integration, groups vii viii Foreword become collective selves with an identity, autonomy, and consciousness, apart from their individual members. Individual mental states and activi- ties are overlaid with the collective’s shared mental states and patterns of behavior; and as such, the ‘sense of being an individual ‘I’ gets subsumed by, or incorporated into, the feeling of being a collective ‘we” (Kotler and Wheal 2017, p. 68). Beyond its extraordinary, empirical scope, this book is highly original in developing sociological and social psychological theories of conscious- ness as well as in applying the framework to a major issue in international law, namely gender. The work investigates and analyses gender issues, in particular, gender inequality and justice in international law through research on laws, legal debates and agendas, court decisions, government investigations and analyses, and reports (such as those dealing with rec- ognition of the need for and construction of women’s rights as well as those addressing more specific issues such as rape and other violence against women). The international legal community is concretely grounded in the UN organizational complex, World Courts, global legal institutes, research networks, legal associations, and other international non-government organizations (INGOs), and their reports and related discussions and reflections. The work is explanatory, critical, and normative: Walker applies, devel- ops, and integrates theories not only from sociology and social psychol- ogy, but also from analytic psychology (in particular, Jungian theory), gender theory, international law, and international relations. In doing this, she demonstrates a truly impressive knowledge and command of multiple vast literatures. Walker states that in accordance with her framework, all human groups and institutions form a collective self: partnerships, families, corpora- tions, nation-states, international organizations, and a global commu- nity. What we find in the case of an established collectivity (if you will, a ‘socio-cultural population’) is an identity or self-representation, extensive communications and interactions, processes of collective judgment and decision-making as well as self-reflectivity. Each collective specified in her general model is considered to be a type of self-reflective agent embedded in a socio-political and cultural context. Foreword ix In her research on international gender law and its development, she conceptualizes and illustrates how collective consciousness and unconsciousness are manifested in, and also supported through, law, legal processes, and narratives. The conscious aspects are manifested in, among other things, specific laws, and legal and related discursive pro- cesses, whereas the unconscious mechanisms of the global collective self reveal themselves through cultural archetypes and coded narratives, self- deceptions, and fabrications embedded in ongoing legal processes and practices; for example, gender-relevant narratives assume that men and the public sphere are intrinsically empowered, whereas women and the private sphere are intrinsically disempowered. Several key points of the book are: • Public international law is a social structure established by multiple agents in historical processes in particular socio-cultural and legal contexts. The community (communities) of those engaged in international law con- sists of agents that interact and co-create evolving legal systems and a global collective self. • Collective selves have an identity, entailing interactions among partici- pants that generate consciousness in reflectivity. Collective selves are conscious through their shared communications, shared reflections on the collectivity, its relationships, procedures, its collective decision-making, its determinations of goals and intentions as well as collective actions. • A collective self possesses distinct conscious and unconscious proper- ties that can be identified and analyzed using the sociology of con- sciousness framework. • Collective unconscious material consists of archetypes, animus/anima, persona/shadow duality, and cultural complexes. She emphasizes aspects of the ‘cultural unconscious’—its elements and processes— more than Jung’s ‘personal unconscious,’ because the former is associ- ated with definable collectives (and individuals participating in these collectives) rather than purely isolated persons. • The book raises awareness of the impact of unconscious elements, understandings, and assumptions in international law and sheds light on the tacit norms, stereotypes, ambiguous language, and habitual, unreflective practices of international law relating to gender issues. The x Foreword unconscious split (differentiation) between masculine and feminine consciousness, she shows, is evident in international laws and organi- zations relating to women and men. • The unconscious archetypes, dualities, biases, and other constraints are circulated in the global collective self—and manifest themselves in the practices and discourses of law and the public sphere. She finds in international laws, procedures, and communications diverse concep- tions and narratives about gender and gender justice, the manifesta- tion of relationships between masculine and feminine consciousness and related archetypes. • It might seem paradoxical to speak of ‘unconscious narratives.’ Archetypes, biases, tacit dissonant assumptions, and inherent predis- positions may operate unconsciously at the same time that legal and public narratives are typically understood as public and conscious but operate with coded assumptions and tacit or hidden messages. There are many features of a narrative or legal discourse that are taken par- tially for granted, and seldom reflected upon, and therefore remain largely unconscious—much of this relates to stereotypes and gender archetypes. • Collective unconscious material is a significant factor in the persistent violations and paradoxes of international law: for instance, concerning genuine gender justice—universal
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