The purpose of this research is to explore the impact of the social unconscious on organizational learning in Kazakhstan. Organizational learning is presented as a social process, and interpreted as happening in the interplay between social and unconscious emotions and organizational power relations (Vince and Gabriel, 2011; Vince, 2001). Psychodynamic theory is used to study organizational learning. This approach supports an analysis of the interplay between unconscious emotions and power relations that affect organizational learning processes. The study pinpoints how individuals in organizations are bound to organizational power relations, which both define the learning possibilities of its members, and, at the same time, reproduce those power relations. I focus on the unconscious elements of the reproduction of power relations that harbour and steer individual and collective relations (Frosh, 2001). Particular attention is paid to how power relations, which are influenced by the social unconscious (Weinberg, 2007) regulate individuals’ inner worlds and underlie their social interactions. The empirical part of the thesis presents the fieldwork in five organisations where semi-structured interviews were carried out using elements of photo-elicitation, with records kept in my reflexive diary notes. The work is grounded in my empirical data, and designed to address the research questions by iterative movement between the captured data and the theoretical framework. The research contributes to scholarship pertaining to emotion, politics and organizational learning with the key contribution being the insights gained from probing the role of individuals and their emotions in their efforts to learn in post-Soviet organizations. Elements of the old (Soviet) regime linger in the new organizations that form Kazakhstan's free market economy and the tension between these regimes provides an environment that is rich both in emotion and power/politics. This offers an opportunity to shed light on the interplay between emotion as well as power during individual and organizational attempts to learn. More specifically, emotions and organizational power relations are discussed through five aspects of the social unconscious identified from the empirical data. Subsequently, four sets of emotions pertaining to the five aspects are refined from these findings and discussed in terms of the impact that emotions have on learning processes.

This study focuses on exploring the relationship between domestic workers and the children they help to raise from the child’s perspective, using attachment theory (Bowlby, 1988) and psychoanalytic theory (referring specifically to Klein (1952) and Fairbairn (1952/2006) as some theoretical bases). Also, the concepts of the social unconscious (Weinberg, 2007) and social ghosts (Gergen, 2000) are used to provide a link to the relationship having social implications and functions in the South African context. All theories were used in an anti-essentialistic, reflexive and heuristic way, without reification or objectification of the various terms and concepts within the theories. Also, the paradigmatic point of departure for this research is postmodernism (Apignanesi, Sadar, Curry&Garrat, 2003), focusing on the contextual and socially constructed view of knowledge production. From this point of departure, the methodology is qualitative and the research design autoethnographic (Bochner, 1997; Ellis 1998; 2000; Muncey, 2005; Holman Jones, 2005). My own story is presented where I have used various data sources such as my own memories, a letter (Babbie&Mouton, 2008), and photographs which were analysed according to the principles of visual narrative analysis found in Riessman (2008) primarily. Further data was collected through the use of two radio talk shows, where participants were invited to share their stories with regard to being raised by a domestic worker. This data was analysed using thematic narrative analysis (Riessman, 2008), in which the narratives (kept as whole as possible) were analysed, each case in turn, using themes from the narratives themselves and deductive psychoanalytic themes. Some of the themes elicited were possession (where charges felt in possession of their domestic worker), absence (in relation to the child’s biological mother experienced both by domestic workers biological children and the domestic workers charges), loss (especially in relation to a caregiver), the male caregiver (a paternal figure to his charges), the politicisation of the relationship (the relationship between domestic worker and charge as product of a political system), reconciliation and action (a call for empathy and change), and an intertwining of cultures (where black and white, male and female, rich and poor exist inextricably linked with one another as a product of segregation). I have also maintained a consistent critical and reflexive stance throughout. In conclusion I have presented the contribution of this work to social science and society. Similarly, some limitations of this study are presented, as well as directions for further research. Copyright / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Psychology / unrestricted