Transfigurations: Ornamentalism and A Decolonial Theory of Magic

How might one begin to heal the transgenerational wounds of colonization in psychoanalysis or psychotherapy? Legacies of coloniality—structures of power, labor, and subjugation—continue to cause psychic harm, particularly at the intersections of gendered and racialized bodies. In the Euro-American imagination, the flesh of the feminine Asiatic body in particular becomes the site for all manner of constructions, including but not limited to inorganic objectification: commodities to be possessed, repulsed, or destroyed. This article seeks to apply Anne Anlin Cheng’s concept of ornamentalism to create a path toward healing the pain of colonial objectification by complicating the categories of human and object themselves. It does so by proposing a decolonial theory of magic that allows for transfiguration to occur, illustrating these concepts with a clinical vignette of a transfeminine Asian American therapist and a transfeminine Asian American patient.