Melancholia, Mourning, Movements: The Mobilization of Passions and Struggle for Hegemony in Thailand

Abstract

Political movements often articulate their identities through the experience of loss, evoking shared attachments and passions. This paper argues that the psychoanalytic concepts of melancholia and mourning help illuminate how politics of loss operate in shaping collective identity and hegemony. Drawing from Thailand’s political conflicts between 2019 and 2022— between patriotic-conservative and progressive-democratic forces—the paper distinguishes two forms of political mobilization: melancholic attachment to an idealized past and mourninglike transformation toward new possibilities. Identifying with lost objects not only generates affective energy but also constitutes a struggle for hegemony through the creation of empty signifiers such as order or future. This psychosocial framework reveals how movements mobilize desire and passion in pursuit of political dominance.