The concept of transitional phenomena, introduced by the object-relations psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott, stems from his ‘discovery’ of transitional objects--the ubiquitous first possessions of young children that belong both to the child and to the outside world, and which occupy an intermediate position between fantasy (inner world) and reality (outer world). Importantly, while transitional objects have a physical existence, they are also pressed into the service of inner reality. Winnicott used the term ‘potential space’ to refer to the intermediate zone inhabited by transitional phenomena. For the child, playing inhabits this ‘intermediate zone’, which is consequently significant in developmental processes. Winnicott argued that this grounds all kinds of adult cultural experience, which is located in ‘the potential space between the individual and the environment’, a space of ‘maximally intense experiences’.

This model has much to offer by way of understanding of how we might engage with the world at a public level without setting aside our inner lives, our emotions and psychical investments. In the context of T-PACE, it offers new directions for the cultural researcher interested in exploring interaction between the psychical and the social/cultural, between our inner (psychical) and our outer (material) worlds, aiding understanding of key aspects of the way we relate to, consume, produce and use cultural resources, cultural objects and texts of different kinds.

T-PACE is an interdisciplinary research project whose aim is to develop and revitalise cultural theory, methodology and research through exploring the potential for object-relations theory in psychoanalysis (and in particular the concept of transitional phenomena) to extend and deepen understanding of various aspects of cultural experience.

 

Cultural studies and cultural theory have not generally engaged with psychical/inner world aspects of cultural experience. There exists, however, an emergent body of work which suggests that the idea of transitional phenomena can offer a fruitful way into examining and understanding cultural texts and cultural practices and real people’s engagements with them, and that viable methodologies for studying these are capable of development. Further details

 

T-PACE emerged from a programme of research undertaken by Annette Kuhn during a period of AHRC study leave. One of the outcomes of this was the formation of a small informal study group, which has been meeting and corresponding since 2006. From this process, key areas for further research have been identified, and these form the basis of the current inter-institutional, interdisciplinary, inquiry:

The turn to Winnicott: theory and method: A key objective here is to establish the differences between a Winnicottian approach and existing theoretical uses of psychoanalysis within the field (e.g. Freudian-Lacanian theories of film spectatorship). What new cultural forms, practices and modes of engagement can a 'Winnicottian' approach enable us to address? We are not interested in the ‘application’ of psychoanalytic theory to an appreciation of cultural texts, nor will we import Winnicott's theories of transitional phenomena wholesale into the analysis of the cultural forms and practices we discuss. Rather, we foreground our mode of engagement with psychoanalytic theory, and the relationship between that theory and our objects of study.

Transitional space, cultural practice and creativity: Winnicott’s work on transitional phenomena suggests that grounded exploration of the psychical investments involved in cultural experiences can enhance our understanding of culture’s creative processes. Exploration of these processes is being conducted in tandem with, and through, putting into practice the properly aesthetic aspect of cultural experience—including developing new artwork that reflexively engages with, challenges and extends Winnicottian theories of creativity. This contributes a vital strand of practice-based research to the more traditional research inherent in the other key areas.

The kinesis of spaces and frames: According to Winnicott, movement between inner and outer worlds is a crucial aspect of our engagement with transitional phenomena. Such spatial, kinetic metaphors are highly significant, and the concept of transitional phenomena offers a fresh approach to an understanding of everyday spatial practices in the social world and also (since there is also a kind of kinesis involved in a range of psychical investments in film) to the spatial engagements that characterise aspects of the cinematic experience This area brings together analysis of a range of practices involving bodily, virtual-bodily, and psychical engagements, from the multisensorial spaces of cultural geography--inhabiting, negotiating and moving through familiar spaces/cities/environments, for example--to the geographies of virtual spaces within the film frame and spectators’ embodied engagements with them.

Media users: The aim here is to focus on cultural experience in terms of media use and the psychosocial relationship between media consumption and lived cultural identity, developing empirical operationalisations of Winnicott’s theory of transitional phenomena in the context of contemporary, pervasively-mediated cultures. To what extent are contemporary subjects’ ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ worlds interrelated via intense, absorbing and trusted media (specific texts, hardware, and digital platforms)? How might a reading of Winnicott enable us to move beyond media/cultural studies’ preoccupations with ‘resistance’ whilst retaining a broadly sociological and cultural-political dimension? Work in this area will move forward a ‘Winnicottian turn’ in media/cultural studies that links culturalist notions of ‘lived experience’ to psychosocial understandings of the self.