Dislocation in Context

''Dislocation' is a central term in Ernesto Laclau's theory of discourse. However, the term raises the following questions: To what extent is dislocation part of any identity? What is the relation between dislocation and antagonism? What rote does an outside without access to representation play? How do discourses act as compensation for dislocations? These questions will be answered in the context of Russian politics and identity. The main interest here lies in establishing how the category of dislocation can be put to work in relation to a concrete political analysis. Although Laclau situates the category at an ontological level, it can only really come to life, and the complexities associated with it become visible, once it is deployed ontically, in the analysis of a specific political conjuncture. This requires a political analysis of available discourses and counter-discourses that is historically sensitive and informed, and is able to place events and dislocations into the context of larger trajectories of political imaginaries and their associated forms of subjective identification.'