A Nation Once Again Towards an Epistemology of the Republican Imaginaire

Abstract

The epistemological structure of Irish republican ideology is examined through the theoretical perspective of Jacques Lacan. This paper extrapolates this position into a societal and group matrix. The Lacanian imaginary is taken here as a model which can encompass the epistemological structure of republicanism in particular as a form or sub-set of nationalism. I will explore the nature of Lacan’s concept of the imaginary order before applying it to the construction of a republican idea of selfhood. I am aware that Lacan’s theories are essentially based on the individual self, but would contend that there is theoretical justification in applying them to a more societal or group concept of identity. In Althusserian terms, society interpellates the next generation in its own image through socio-cultural and linguistic signifiers, and the epistemological structure of republican nationalism is suffused with such structures, and has successfully replicated itself in various individuals over a long period of time. Lacan’s theories of the creation of the individual self through a form of reflection would certainly seem to have some place in such structures.