Lost at sea: The Freudian uncanny and representing ecological degradation

Abstract

This article focuses on an unusual press photograph depicting the worsening ecological crises in the Gulf of Finland. The emotional register of the picture could be described as uncanny, a psychoanalytical term that serves as the main theoretical concept of the paper. Two questions are discussed: How does the photograph work in the light of psychic functions connected with the uncanny experience? What are the political implications of these functions in the context of the photograph? The theoretical bias focuses on some of the psychic dimensions of the uncanny: denial and repression. The discussion, however, departs from its Freudian base by emphasizing the social and political disposition of the unconscious. The paper elucidates how the photograph oscillates between reality and imagination, beauty and dirtiness, familiarity and unfamiliarity. The social significance of the uncanny as a representational strategy appears to be uneven and paradoxical. On one hand, it may provide a means to question the basic tenets of the social reality and, hence, the status quo. On the other hand, the uncanny may provoke the denial of the very same reality and obscure its changeability.