The Social Life of a Psychoanalytical Concept: ?Normal Adolescence? in Argentina and Beyond, 1960-1990

MANZANO, VALERIA

Buenos Aires

Conferencia; Conferencia Historia de la Sexualidad en el siglo XX: Sur de América y Sur de Europa; 2019

Universidad de Creta y Universidad de San Martín

In what is now a classic essay for studying material culture, Arjun Appadurai suggestedto take a biographical approach to reconstruct the ?social life of things?, from theirinception and creation to their circulation and appropriations. In this paper, I will freelyuse that suggestion to reconstruct the social life of a concept: ?normal adolescence?. Inso doing, my aim is to analyze how (and why) a group of psychoanalysts embarked uponthe task of crafting that concept, its institutional and intellectual crystallizations, thecriticisms it awoke in the convoluted political scenario of 1970s Argentina, and itsvoyages in geographical and temporal coordinates. I contend that the concept of ?normaladolescence? served as a platform for updating the understandings between youth,sexuality, and politics as well as for further legitimizing the psychoanalyticalprofessionals in transnational perspectives. Moreover, ?normal adolescence? representedone of the last additions to the list of psychoanalytical concepts that became popularizedby reaching its alleged subject: adolescents themselves.