Psicologización, poder constituyente y autonomía: repensando la construcción de la subjetividad en la postmodernidad

Abstract

According to influential theories of identity in postmodernity, as community bonds loosen, individuals have increasing discretion in the construction of their own identity. In this article we argue for seeing modernization as the progressive psychologization of subjectivity. That reveals the mechanisms of what we can call, following Foucault, 'constituent power': a power that turns the psychological subject's conflicts away from external objects and towards an inner world. It is that inner conflict that promotes the modern preoccupation with identity.