Anxieties, defenses and perverse dynamics in a manufacturing firm

Abstract

This paper aims to demonstrate how a socioanalytic perspective deepens an anthropological one. We focused our attention on the instrumentalization of personal and collective anxieties within a small organization, in order to reveal how and why power works. By using psychoanalytic concepts, we were able to draw the space of possibles that nests the relations of dominance. Our research draws on fieldwork conducted in a rural community in Northern Romania. We used participant observation, semi‐structured and unstructured interviews. Relying on the observed vulnerabilities and local idiosyncrasies that create specific necessities and expectations, we tried to show how defense systems, basic assumptions and perverse dynamics shape the organization's culture.