Nomadic Subjectivity and Analytical Listening

Abstract

In this paper, the author examines transformations of subjectivity in contemporary hyper-mobile societies and the challenges they pose for psychoanalytic listening. Drawing on Rosi Braidotti’s notion of nomadic subjectivity, it differentiates between exile, migrant, and nomad as distinct psychic and temporal configurations. While the exile remains bound to the past through loss, and the migrant inhabits suspended bureaucratic time, the nomad constructs identity through movement and transition rather than belonging. Using Marc Augé’s concept of non-places—spaces of transit devoid of memory—the author argues that psychoanalysis can transform such voids into meaningful encounters. Clinical vignettes of “nomadic patients” reveal fragmentation, anxiety, and the struggle to create attachment amid constant displacement. Within this fluidity, the analyst’s reliability and temporal consistency become anchors for historicization and subjective localization. Mobility is framed as both a social hierarchy and a psychic condition, exposing contradictions between privileged digital nomadism and forced migration. Psychoanalytic work must engage with these transient contexts through translation and transposition, creating new meanings within discontinuity. Ultimately, nomadic subjectivity demands a psychoanalysis capable of inhabiting the in-between—where identity, language, and belonging remain open, heterogeneous, and perpetually in process.