Encounter with Other as Trauma. An Attempt to Describe the Conquest of Mexico in the Perspective of Jacques Lacan’s Theory

Abstract

In this paper, the authors present their interpretation of the conquest of Mexico, using the Lacanian psychoanalysis. The conquest of Mexico was a trauma for Indians not only because existence of Triple Alliance and other city-states having been endangered — which was obvious — but also because the confrontation with Other (Spaniards) disclosed a shortcoming in their Symbolic Order; the lack of language and speech which Indians could use to describe their experience. Nevertheless, they later on got the possibility to describe the trauma in words, but when that happened, their subjectivity had changed. The Indian subject became a colonial one.