ABSTRACT
In this essay, Viego’s point of departure is British neurologist Oliver Sacks’s 1985 case study of José, “The Autist Artist” (Sacks, 1998), a person “said to be hopelessly retarded” (p. 214). Viego follows Sacks’s inconsistencies in the account of the case as a frame for several points of discussion. They serve as metaphors for a variety of conceptual preoccupations and promptings under the rubric “Latino/a barrios and psychoanalysis.” These include the meaning of “psychoanalysis in the barrios” as well as its inverse, the meaning of “barrios in psychoanalysis.” Furthermore, Viego goes on to explore the meaning of the term “LatinX” in connection with “psychoanalysis in the barrios” and the promise of validation granted by the neurosciences. Examining the political uses and abuses of the term LatinX as a promise of a different future, and considering the notions of self and subjectivity implied by the term “LatinX” in relation to the promise of legitimacy offered by the neurosciences, Viego plays with the idea of a LatinX psychoanalysis, arguing that a Lacanian psychoanalytic theoretical approach would facilitate the clearing of a space for a critical theoretical perspective sorely missing in LatinX Studies.
