Can famine be a theme for psychoanalysis?

• Grant number: 25/18945-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Master's degree
• Start date: January 05, 2026
• End date: July 04, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Psychology
• Principal Investigator: Danilo Saretta Verissimo
• Grantee: Edilaine de Jesus da Silva
• Supervisor: Thamy Claude Ayouch
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências e Letras (FCL-ASSIS). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Assis. Assis , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Université Paris Cité, France
• Associated to the scholarship: 24/20259-3 - Hunger as a taboo: a psychoanalytic perspective, BP.MS

Abstract

In this research project abroad, we aim to delve deeper into a specific part of the overall project, namely, to understand how the relational categories of race, gender, and class contribute to elucidating the bibliographic void in the psychoanalytic field on the issue of hunger. To achieve this goal, we will draw on three works by Josué de Castro, Physiology of Taboos (1938), Geography of Hunger (1946/2022), and Geopolitics of Hunger (1955), in which the author points out the reasons why hunger is a taboo subject in Western society. The Brazilian geographer argues that hunger is a product of colonialism, therefore, talking about hunger is not in the interest of the hegemonic power, as it was structured from the colonial system. We will articulate Castro's ideas with the works of Thamy Ayouch, especially La race sur le divan (2024), in which the psychoanalyst addresses the resistance of psychoanalysis to listening to and constructing theories about relational issues of race. Ayouch questions the psychic effects of racism and how psychoanalysis can listen to these effects. We believe that bringing these two authors together can provide theoretical support for answering the following question: is hunger a topic for psychoanalysis? To achieve this goal, we intend to carry out this project over a period of six months, following the deadlines established by the institution to which we are affiliated and by FAPESP.