A Deleuzian social psychology

Brown, SD ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7841-3225 and Lundy, C, 2025. A Deleuzian social psychology. In: Gough, B, ed., The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Social Psychology, ed. B. Gough. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 125-140. ISBN 9783031805325

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Abstract

Gilles Deleuze was a major figure in Continental Philosophy of the late twentieth century and is pivotal to the adoption of Poststructuralism in the social sciences. Deleuze’s philosophy and relevance to Critical Social Psychology is not easily summarised because it is not singular and narrowly systematic, but rather plural, open and creative. Two major themes in his work are particularly valuable to psychology—his treatment of thought and sensemaking and his concern with being and becoming. In this chapter we show how these two themes combine in a number of distinct topics. Deleuze describes two kinds of multiplicity, quantitative and qualitative, and how experience is constituted through indivisible flows rather than clearly defined intervals and parts. His key concepts of virtual and actual provide a way to reformulate questions around realism and relativism, and to demonstrate that that the ideal is not abstract, but rather in the process of being determined through our actions. Deleuze approaches subjectivity as a continuously transforming and plural style of living rather than a self-contained ‘thing’. Affect is similarly treated in terms of what can be done within an assemblage and the relations we are capable of forming. Critical Social Psychologists will find in Deleuze’s work a rich series of resource to inform an experimental and transformative approach to theoretical and empirical work.

Item Type:	Chapter in book
Creators:	Brown, S.D. and Lundy, C.
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan
Place of Publication:	Cham, Switzerland
Date:	18 April 2025
ISBN:	9783031805325
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1007/978-3-031-80533-2_7 DOI 2379673 Other
Divisions:	Schools > Nottingham Business School
Record created by:	Jeremy Silvester
Date Added:	19 Sep 2025 08:06
Last Modified:	19 Sep 2025 08:09
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/54364

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