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Home , Collective consciousness, Collective unconscious

Collective and Alexandra Walker 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 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 storage and retrieval, electronic , computer software, or by similar or dissimilar 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 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 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 with collec- tive consciousness provides valuable understandings as well as new research questions about its laws, limitations, and opportunities. Adopting the ‘ 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 operates as a ‘public ’ 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 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) , 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 as well as distributed and shared mental states, , and experiences of group participants. At a certain level of cohesion and integration, groups vii viii Foreword become collective with an identity, , 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 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 , namely gender. The work investigates and analyses gender issues, in particular, gender inequality and 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 , 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 (in particular, Jungian theory), gender theory, international law, and international relations. In doing this, she demonstrates a truly impressive and command of multiple vast . Walker states that in accordance with her framework, all human groups and form a collective self: partnerships, , 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 . 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. • material consists of archetypes, animus/anima, / duality, and cultural complexes. She emphasizes aspects of the ‘cultural unconscious’—its elements and processes— more than Jung’s ‘,’ because the former is associ- ated with definable (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 on the tacit norms, , 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, , 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 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 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 feminine as victim/pros- titute; masculine as dominators, violators; and other biases and distor- tions built into the formal law. • Despite the conscious intentions of the international legal community (and its agents)—and the movers and shakers behind it—to create gender justice and equality, it has in tended to perpetuate many patterns of gender duality and division. • The collective unconscious operates in combination with particular interests and orientations and has the power to generate legal distortions, deviations, and failures of implementation in international gender law. This is a key proposition, explaining, according to Walker, persistent violations of many international laws. Institutional arrange- ments, institutionalized procedures and also a part in the problematique of the failings of a legal system or, in fact, any norma- tive system. Foreword xi

Normative and Policy Contributions

In addition to her substantial theoretical and empirical work in this book, Alexandra Walker provides a complex of normative and policy . She takes as a point of departure the that ‘males and females are the same’ and should be treated in such a way. In fact, people of all races, all , all orientations, and all languages are the same or can be treated in a certain sense as the same. As such, both sexes (not just women) and both the private and public spheres suffer from the splitting of men and women. Men and the public sphere suffer as a result of their exclusion from feminine consciousness and the private sphere. Yet international laws and institutions have adopted (and institutionalized) a narrative of treating women as victims because they were originally ‘left out’ of the public sphere. In the process of correcting to a certain extent the gender division by granting women public sphere rights, ‘the exclusion of men from the feminine private sphere has been ignored, and the devaluation of feminine consciousness has not been addressed.’ In her consideration of normative implications of her international gender research, she proposes trying to integrate what is alienated or dis- sonant in relation to some gaps and distortions of international law, for instance, the failure to recognize masculine and feminine forms of con- sciousness—as well as other dualities and biases. Integration could be partially accomplished, in Walker’s view, by changing the narratives of gender, transforming gender organizations, and transforming the formu- lations of international law concerning gender issues. She goes a long way toward explaining inherent socio-cultural com- plexities (not just technicalities) in international law and its praxis. Particularly noteworthy is her identification of a fatal flaw in a system in which tens of thousands have been involved in constructing, namely, the rights of women and access to the public sphere. She argues that this approach of focusing on granting rights to women and encouraging women into the public sphere has had the side-effect of disempowering the feminine by victimizing women, ignoring the emotional and intui- tive needs of men, glorifying the public sphere, and diminishing the sig- nificance of the private sphere. In short, women have been increasingly xii Foreword granted public sphere rights while a man’s equal right(s) to the private sphere has not yet been fully acknowledged or articulated. Also, she takes up issues about rape of boys and men as well as other forms of violence against men; the drafting of boys and men into violent gangs and armies is not properly considered in international legal discourses and laws. Walker proposes a transformation of the language and narratives of gender practices as well as practices in international law so as to integrate better masculine and feminine consciousness and public and private spheres in the global collective self and in international law. This integra- tion can, in her view, be pursued by:

• Changing the narratives of gender • Changing gendered properties of organizations • Systematically transforming formulations of international law relating to gender issues so as to realize more balanced and just equality

Through such initiatives unconscious conditions and forces can be in part countervailed, in particular to overcome the split between the differ- ent consciousnesses in international law and the hidden powers of the unconscious to compromise or distort the law. ‘Unconscious’ implies for Alexandra Walker the challenge to work or to struggle to make the uncon- scious distorting features conscious (this is a key Jungian process and one which Walker uses as a normative ). She continues, again in an opti- mistic mode, ‘Once a collective self becomes aware of its unconscious material, it is able to begin to transform its narratives and ways of think- ing/reasoning as well as to create ongoing reflective norms and social processes that allow a collective self to become consciously articulated and to achieve its objectives.’ She emphasizes that the practical elements of such struggle—the appli- cation of her framework—can assist a group, a , an organization, an , or a nation-state to confront its unconscious material in order to work toward more encompassing forms of consciousness. Walker’s revolutionary framework can be applied fruitfully to not only international legal systems, such as gender law, but readily to many diverse collectives: families, partnerships, collaborating groups, diverse organizations, institutions, nation-states, and, of course, the Foreword xiii global legal community. This is because all collective selves are socially constructed and maintained. They are characterized by conscious as well as unconscious forms of expressions, actions, and reactions. In any application of the framework, the key is to determine the con- sciousness narratives of each collective self, and the unconscious materials and mechanisms lying hidden outside of the conscious nar- ratives. The latter refers to the nature of collective representations, rules and institutional arrangements, and self-reflectivity, while unconscious materials and mechanisms consist of tacit understand- ings, automatic responses and habits, established dualities, and archetypes in the such as the relationships between masculine and feminine consciousness. The international system of gender law and legal structures and mech- anisms has parallels then in the ‘complex ’ associated with other collectivities (‘socio-cultural populations’). For instance, charac- terized by a ‘social contract,’ which is commonly recognized, reflected upon, communicated about, referred to, and applied. (Similarly, a consti- tution plays a similar role in a political system.) In addition to the explicit, possibly formalized ‘social contract,’ there are also tacit rules, rules about ‘exceptions’ and ‘special’ interpretations and applications, part of a vast underworld that constrains, biases, and distorts people’s ‘rational’ cognitive-­normative world. Her and provide a platform for pursuing radical changes; widespread consciousness raising and mobilization of people would be essential factors in any such transformation. She writes, ‘It is now time to withdraw the boundaries that prevented men and women from accessing either masculine or feminine consciousness.’ Of course, institutional arrangements and power relationships will have to be trans- formed or, at least, countervailed. Future work will need to discuss what social and political conditions it would take to bring about some of these changes; the power or authority conditions and the potential opposition as well as possible unintended consequences will provide a deeper and more complete understanding of the policy changes to be accomplished. In sum, Walker has very much extended the sociological and theory of consciousness in her application of it for the first xiv Foreword time to international law. She also extended its theoretical base by incor- porating Jungian analytic psychology—and the of the uncon- scious and its constraining impact on conscious thinking and behavior. She also contributed with a feminist critique of international gender law. The book brings an original voice to feminist theory in international law, by including men in the gender narrative, and re-valuing the private sphere for men, women, and the global collective self. Alexandra Walker’s theoretical framework of a global collective self (or selves) with conscious- ness—applied to international law on gender—entails a new way of theo- rizing about international law (as well as other legal systems) as conscious as well as unconscious processes of a global collective self.

Professor Emeritus of Sociology, University of Tom R. Burns Uppsala, Uppsala, Sweden Visiting Scholar, Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University, Spring, 2004–2014 Senior Research Associate, Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology (CIES), Lisbon University Institute, Portugal Acknowledgements

This book is based on my PhD, which was completed at the Australian National University (ANU). My supervisors were Professor Kim Rubenstein and Associate Professor Mark Nolan from the ANU College of Law. I am grateful to them for their enduring support throughout the PhD and beyond. I would also like to express my gratitude to my col- leagues at the Centre for Social Impact, UNSW Sydney, particularly Associate Professor Leanne Piggott and Professor Kristy Muir. Thank you to my parents Anne and Ross Walker, my eternal inspirations. Thank you to my publishers Palgrave Macmillan for persisting with me as an author despite many stops and starts with this manuscript as a result of two babies and two sets of maternity leave. Finally, to my husband Alex and my sons Raphael and Theodore—you are to me.

xv Contents

1 I Versus We: Introduction to Collective Consciousness 1

Part I Collective Consciousness in Theory 13

2 Entanglement: The Interaction Between Individual and Collective Consciousness 15

3 Collective Consciousness Theory in Sociology 35

4 Collective Consciousness in Psychology 47

5 The Field Hypothesis: Quantum Phenomena and Mind/ Interaction 59

6 The Collective Self Framework 69

7 The Collective Unconscious: How Collective Consciousness Is Distorted 83

xvii xviii Contents

8 How Collective Consciousness Works 105

Part II Collective Consciousness in Practice: Gender in International Law 111

9 Case Study Part One: The Collective Consciousness of Gender 113

10 Case Study Part Two: Unconscious Gender Role-Playing 157

11 Case Study Part Three: Raising Consciousness—Sexual and Gender-­Based Violence in Armed Conflict 199

12 Case Study Part Four: Different Perspectives on Sexual and Gender-­Based Violence 251

13 Case Study Part Five: Empowering the Masculine and the Feminine in International Law 273

14 Final 291

Bibliography 293

Index 351 List of Figures

Fig. 6.1 The Collective Self Framework. ©Walker, A. Cambridge University Press, 2015 reprinted with permission 70 Fig. 9.1 The collective self framework and gender justice in interna- tional law 115 Fig. 10.1 The collective self & gender justice in international law 166 Fig. 10.2 The women as victims construct in law 178 Fig. 10.3 Women ‘granted access’ to the public sphere 179 Fig. 10.4 The interplay of projection between masculine & feminine consciousness 186

xix List of Tables

Table 10.1 Characteristics of masculine and feminine consciousness 161 Table 10.2 Age eligibility for pensions in Australia 168 Table 11.1 States of masculine consciousness 203 Table 11.2 States of feminine consciousness 204

xxi