Replacement: Loss and Substitution in Culture and Society

Replacement is always dramatic. How does one thing or person appearing in the place of another – the second baby, the new lover, the maternity cover or ‘surrogate’ mother – constitute a threat to the earlier occupant of that place? Or is the superseding figure haunted by the one for whom they substitute? What happens psychologically or socially to the pair-structure which is thus up-ended? Whom do we blame, whom do we hate, when we find ourselves in this drama? What do we want when we imagi...