Psychoanalytic ethnography and the transformation of racially wounded communities

This paper first defines race and related dehumanizing experiences and then explores the history of the study of Blacks in ethnography and in psychoanalysis before addressing the primary focus: psychoanalytical ethnography. Psychoanalytical ethnography is valuable for transforming racially wounded communities into vibrant open communities through creating a safe place for community leaders and residents to ‘play’. In the process of their play, they gradually unravel the layers of race, which most fundamentally is emotionality, and begin to engage in tasks that work towards developing a more open, welcoming community. The paper draws on the work of neo‐Freudians such as Winnicott and Kohut to develop a safe space for the researcher and focus groups to create a process of play that unpeels layers or race as an emotional scar and to develop empowering ways to transform closed communities into open communities.