Fanon, the body schema, and white solipsism

Abstract

Fanon's conception of the body schema plays a central role in his philosophy. The body schema is the body's “grasp” or “sense” of itself. Fanon argues that in the encounter between the Black and white person the body schema “crumbles,” so that the Black person experiences herself as object‐like in various ways. Fanon's focus is the Black person's experience because his aim is to provide the Black person with tools for emancipation. Nevertheless, his account raises the question: What happens to white self‐awareness within the colonial system? I argue that a proper understanding of Fanon's notion of the body schema provides an answer. The body schema underpins awareness of other people, not just one's bodily self. It is the self‐other experiential system that crumbles in the colonial system. Thus, we can supplement Fanon's account of Black self‐experience as object‐like with a description of white experience as tending toward solipsism, where this is the other side of the Black self‐awareness that Fanon describes. Both forms of awareness result from degraded reciprocity. Whilst they are not the same, they are nevertheless complementary parts of a defective relation between people.