Modes Of Subjectivity Research Articles

Ending Neoliberalism

The COVID-19 pandemic ushered in a new round of obituaries for neoliberalism, with some declaring that we have entered the stage of “postneoliberalism.” Rather than weighing in on the debates about whether neoliberalism has or has not ended, this article reflects on the theoretical framework in which neoliberalism's end has come to be posited. The article calls this framework “ending,” which allows the theorist to make “imaginative investments in coherent patterns” (Frank Kermode) with beginnings, middles, and ends. By drawing on Kermode's literary theory, the article lays out three key features of ending as a theoretical framework: a teleological vision of history; a Euro- and Anglocentric view of neoliberalism; and a distinction between a neoliberal policy paradigm and modes of subjectification. The article then goes on to explore the political limitations of ending, especially for the left, through a reading of Gary Gerstle's The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order (2022). To finish, the article seeks to resurrect ending as a metatheoretical device in which ending as a framework becomes the subject of theorization. Doing so, the article proposes, helps the left to reflect on the position from which it analyzes neoliberalism, as well as to better connect such reflection to concrete political projects that seek to actively end neoliberalism.

Sound, dispositif and power: sound formations in pop music

ABSTRACT Sound as a medium of music is pre-structured in the social context in which it circulates, representing an aesthetic meta-level of the musical. As a socially pertinent concept, “sound” implies different references to the sonic material, including different ways of listening. The result of a cultural formatting process, sound manifests in formations that audibly and conceptually correspond to the processes through which societies in which they are anchored organise themselves. Although this has been present in all societies and cultures at all times, it is particularly evident in the technical shaping of sound in recording studios. Every recording is based on a sound design determined by the technical setup prior to the recording process. The concept of the dispositif developed by Michel Foucault offers a way of relating the meta-aesthetic, cultural pre-structuring of sonic material within the dominant sound formation and the resulting sound design to fundamental processes of social reproduction, cultural power relations, modes of subjectivation and subject forms. The productivity dispositif, the identity dispositif and the creativity dispositif describe three fundamental constellations within the framework of modern capitalism. The corresponding sound design is analysed on the basis of pop music productions from the 1950s to the 1980s.

We Accept: Bit-by-bit Constitution

Abstract In “We Accept: The Constitution of Airbnb”, published in 2020, I drew on Gunther Teubner’s systems theoretical approach, including to digitalisation and societal constitutionalism, to rethink Airbnb as an auto-constitutionalising domain. This dynamic process, the paper proceeded to suggest, instantiates a structural change, what can be described, in systems theoretical terms, as a “co-evolution” of multiple social systems through structural couplings. It renders observable an “emergence” of a general model of functioning – terms of use and engagement – epitomised by a reconceptualisation of the “social contract” as a network of “standard form contracts” or “contracts of adhesion”, and of an increasingly dominant mode of subjectivation: the standard formation or auto-constitution of subjects as adherents. In this new contribution, I continue this processing of social systems theory and Teubner’s work, this time through a deconstruction and reconstruction of Internet communication. Through this recursive illustration of social systems theory and Teubner’s work, the paper develops a social systems theoretical account of “process”, “constitution”, and “structural change”.

기후위기와 양질의 노동

Bruno Latour emphasizes, “We can no longer liberate ourselves as we could in the past. We are facing a completely new situation.” This statement underscores the climate crisis as a manifestation of the entanglement between nature and culture, compelling humanity to reassess previously viable approaches. These include, at a theoretical level, the dualism between nature and culture, anthropocentrism, and growth ideology, and, on a more practical scale, individual labor and consumption patterns. The evolving macro and micro dynamics highlight the contradictions within capitalist labor systems, challenges the labor law has sought to address. Beyond this, it prompts a reevaluation of the labor subject's mode of existence and the working conditions required in the Anthropocene era. The central question of this research is whether our lives, labor, and theories can adapt to this “new situation” and articulate a concept of “liberation” relevant to our current moment. In seeking answers to this question, the study first explores the conceptualization of labor as envisioned by the labor laws of the Anthropocene, alongside the capabilities that enable such existence. Specifically, it goes beyond the alienation issues highlighted by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing to propose a framework for the existence, relationships, and behaviors of working subjects. This framework emphasizes the integration of our physical selves with our attention, intentions, and actions into the Earth's system, where human and non-human actors intertwine. The study suggests these elements are crucial for participating in the co-evolution of nature and culture, covering all aspects of daily life and labor. For this mode of existence, it highlights the importance of capabilities in existence, relationships, and behaviors as focal points for the labor laws of the Anthropocene. Furthermore, the study advocates for the reduction of working hours and the establishment of a fair wage system as essential conditions to facilitate the capabilities and modes of existence targeted by the Anthropocene's labor laws. It argues that working hours and wages are not merely basic labor conditions but also significantly influence the broader spectrum of existence, including survival. The study posits that decreasing working hours and ensuring adequate wages might not directly affect the well-being of non-human nature. However, the resultant time and financial flexibility could greatly enhance individuals' capacity for existence, relationships, and behaviors, and thereby, reconstruct their relationship with non-human nature. As practical measures to reduce working hours, the study proposes shortening statutory working hours, compensating for overtime work with time rather than money, and expanding the annual paid leave system. Additionally, this study reviews Article 32 (1) of the Constitution, which mandates fair wage guarantees, and suggests the formation of industry-specific tripartite consultative bodies involving labor, management, and government as a mechanism to implement a fair wage system.

Digital Therapeutic Cultures and Their New Regime of Psychological Truth

The article focuses on contemporary digital therapeutic cultures’ new regime of truth. This entails describing and critically analysing the sociomaterial apparatuses that distinguish truth from false and produce specific modes of subjectivation. The article shows that the digital regime of psychological truth is heir to the behavioural mistrust of subjectivity and the epistemological shift from the causal-comprehensive model towards the probabilistic-predictive one. However, the psychological subject has not been excluded, but her role has changed. The article introduces the distinction between valuable and spurious truths to analyse this shift. Algorithms do not need the psychological subject to produce true outcomes, but they depend on her and psy-knowledges to distinguish significative from irrelevant truths. Following Maurizio Lazzarato, the article concludes that digital therapeutic cultures share one of the main features of contemporary capitalism: to produce value at the intersection of processes of subjectivation and de-subjectivation.

Time and space in Brechó de Troca: Reflections on the method of a clothing exchange group in Brazil

This article analyses the creation of a group time-space and its effects based on a master’s thesis research that analysed some processes in a second-hand exchange group called Brechó de Troca. This group is a space for interaction, whose meetings promote the exchange of clothes and accessories. It was founded in Porto Alegre (south of Brazil) in 2009, with a distinct method aiming to produce subjectivity by exchanging clothes in a way that considers their stories. For this research, we assembled materials that paved the way to such results, analysing the mode of production of subjectivity through the dressing practices in the group. We could observe that the invention of another time, which suspends the eagerness for consumption, potentiates modes of subjectivation through the practices of dressing. This article also highlights the fact that access to consumption is not equalitarian in Global South capitalism. This can be seen in a social phenomenon called ‘rolezinhos’, which took place in Brazil in 2014 and illustrated the contrast between the purchasing power of the lower and upper classes. We believe that the invention of the limbo, name given to the time-space created in the group, works as a trigger of processes, which suspends and enables exercises of the self through clothing in the group meetings. The exchanges gain potency and various stories after going through the Brechó de Troca.

Employment leave for early pregnancy endings: A biopolitical reproductive governance analysis in England and Wales

AbstractWhen a pregnancy ends in England and Wales, statutory time away from paid employment is limited to circumstances where there is a live birth or stillbirth. Forms of leave, such as Maternity Leave or Paternity Leave, depend on parental status derived from the civil registration of a new person or a post‐viability stillbirth. Other early pregnancy endings, such as miscarriage or abortion, do not provide specific time off work after pregnancy. This paper uses the concept of reproductive governance to analyze current and shifting biopolitical truth discourses, strategies of intervention, and modes of subjectification around post‐pregnancy leaves. It shows how different inclusions and exclusions are generated by the classificatory boundaries which act as political technologies in this field. Contributing to an area that is under‐researched in the literature, we provide a review of post‐pregnancy statutory employment leave entitlements in this context. We then consider proposals for change presented in the United Kingdom political system in relation to more inclusive leave benefits offered by some employers and different pregnancy ending leaves offered in other jurisdictions. We argue that current arrangements and proposals do not adequately reflect the complexity and diversity of pregnancy endings. We conclude with a call to policymakers in all contexts to carefully assess the consequences of new ideas around leaves for pregnancy endings and to formulate inclusive and fair proposals for change.

Textuelle Infrastrukturen des Theaters. Dramaturgie als Vermittlung

Textuelle Infrastrukturen des Theaters<b>. Dramaturgie als Vermittlung</b>

Повседневность неолиберального субъекта: взаимодействие макро- и микроструктур идеологии

Neoliberalism can be understood both as a practice of governance organized around economic norms of competition, flexibility and risk calculation, and as a technique of shaping and transforming modes of subjectivation. These two interpretations are closely intertwined: the institutions that capture neoliberal discourses become the starting point for the formation of a particular subjectivity known as human capital. At the same time, labour is understood very broadly: even pre-reflexive behavioural practices (e.g., sleep) are included in the idea of human capital. The purpose of this article is to analyse and criticise the neoliberal subject’s image of the life-world. The life-world is understood as an area of everyday human activity within which the pre-predicative resources of “common sense” are at work. The author takes an integrative approach, combining ideological theory and the study of everyday life. M. Foucault’s series of lectures, ‘The Birth of Biopolitics’, is used as the main source of content for the theory of neoliberalism. The critique of the neoliberal subject’s life-world is carried out through the ontological argumentation of the Ljubljana School of Psychoanalysis. The imperative of neoliberal ethics calling for unlimited pleasure is clearly evident in the mode of existence of consumer products. A certain commodity exists as a negation of its own idea: non-alcoholic wine, for example, is a negation of the idea of wine itself. In this sense, pleasure is stripped of any barriers, but just as importantly, the process of its reception becomes a meaning-in-itself that is institutionally supported. Pleasure is linked to the structurally constitutive absence of the object of desire. Thus, a critical analysis of ideology actualises the category of alienation. The overcoming of neoliberal subjectivity is only possible through the acceptance of a fundamental rupture (alienation) as the ontological basis of identity, a position that has been called an object-disoriented ontology.

I Am Because They Tell Me I Am: Mental Health and Performativity

This article discusses madness and its production, aiming to circumscribe Butler's performativity and Foucault's Theory of Discourse in the field of mental health. Madness has historically had different conceptions and social functions. In different contexts and cultures, care practices were created to heal, rescue and disalienate. All these practices built modes of subjectivation and ways of controlling what would become mental illness and psychopathology. But what is madness without medical-psychiatric discourse based on biological practices? How to understand madness from a critical epistemology based on the assumptions of applied human and social sciences? Thus, this article has as its methodology a bibliographical review research, having as main references the post-structuralist philosophy and the sociology of health, rescuing the history of madness and its conceptions: critical and tragic, based on Foucault's theory in dialogue with authors classics of the sociology of health. It is also observed how practices of medicalization of madness were systematized in Brazil, with the Sistema Único de Saúde (SUS) having the principle of universality and equity. With this, it was possible to observe and conclude how the language system and performativity build dissident subjectivities and produce mental patients, insofar as language produces subjects within a pre-established norm, dictating the molds of normal and pathological. The criticism carried out is not just to remove the logic of the biological discourse, but to build epistemologies that find the subject of experience and transform him into a subject of self-knowledge.

Somatic multiplicities: The microbiome-gut-brain axis and the neurobiologized educational subject

Therapeutic translations of the microbiome-gut-brain (MGB) axis are reconstructing the educational subject in a manner amenable to Foucauldian analysis. Yet, at the same time, under the sway of MGB research social scientists are taking a biosocial turn that threatens the integrity of Foucault’s historicizing philosophical project. Meeting that challenge head-on, this article argues that the MGB axis augments the neurobiological constitution of the educational subject by means of a dietetic mode of subjectivation. Absent a pedagogical element, there is a hollowness to critical academics’ claims that holobiontic self-conceptions springing from the axis can elicit a resistant subjectivity. Though wild pedagogies might inform a resistant tactics of the self, contemporary self-technologies are – as Foucault has taught us – a pale shadow of the ancient Greek conception of dietetics as an holistic, embodied and ensouled practice. At the intersection between the disciplinary apparatuses of criminology and education, therefore, the MGB-driven biosocial turn unambiguously reinforces the social control function of schooling.

AI as Social Actor

Given the social and political influence of social networks, which are often structured and organized by what today falls under the umbrella term artificial intelligence, we seek to define this new social frame. Most importantly, we ask how to frame this new social sphere in current theory and how it can be conceptualized for social sciences. However, this is not possible without constructing a logical frame for a problem as deeply entwined with the modern history of logic as AI is. We will therefore frame the problem of AIs as social actors within the logical discourse that Lacanian psychoanalysis opened. Our analysis shows that the inherent indeterminate that constitutes the psychoanalytic subject is omitted from AI-supplanted identities. Logical analysis also allows us to discern a specific mode of subjectivation that is made much more prominent through the normalization of phenomena like echo chambers and online identities.

Het geluk van de niet-identiteit

The happiness of non-identity: Michel Foucault’s search for self-loss beyond modern and Christian confession This article focuses on Michel Foucault’s notion of a ‘happy limbo of non-identity’, formulated in his epilogue to the diary of the ‘hermaphrodite’ Barbin (1838-1868). From the eighteenth century onwards, the incitement to put sex and gender into discourse has limited this freedom to be indeterminate. Using The Will to Knowledge and Confessions of the Flesh, Part I and IV of Foucault’s History of Sexuality, this article describes five main features of modern and early Christian confessional practices. What similarities and differences are there? What is constituted and lost in these practices? Using Foucault’s suggestions in essays to enjoy sexual and other pleasures without confessing, it shows that he decouples ‘self-loss’ from negative Christian self-denial as well as from positive, modern self-constitution. Self-loss thus becomes the moment in which the self can transcend itself and explore new modes of subjectivation.

Afectos y efectos de la pandemia en la educación superior en México

Since the pandemic, workers, teachers and students have faced countless adjustments and the gradual return to face-to-face activities. In order to investigate deeply about the experiences of the return to face-to-face classes, we have recovered 60 narrations of students from two public universities in México who elucidate the complexity and effects on modes of subjectivation. The material obtained has been systematized through grounded theory and the analysis was contrasted from the theory of deleuzian affections, as well as theoretical approaches that problematize socialization and sociality in face-to-face classes, its effect on learning processes and the role of the university institution and the school device. The results are presented in four central categories: impressions and opinions about the return to face-to-face classes; the affections and sensations caused by the pandemic and the face-to-face return; the virtual and face-to-face classes; and the hybrid model.

Race, religion, and coloniality: ex-Muslim “coming-out” narratives in France

In the past few years, a number of individuals have begun using YouTube as a platform to document their transition from being Muslim to being ex-Muslims. This article examines the “coming-out” narratives of self-described ex-Muslims in France. Generally speaking, two main types of videos exist: narratives of transition from Islam to atheism and narratives of religious conversion from Islam to Christianity. There are few differences between these two main types. Both narrative types are inherently political, intersecting significantly with broader Islamophobic and secularist-nationalist discourses in France. Drawing on a thematic analysis of several YouTube videos, within the relevant historical and sociopolitical contexts of France, this article argues that public declarations of apostasy from Islam in France (as narratives of salvation embracing the promise of modernity, while critiquing the supposedly inherent backwardness of Islam) are engaged in a particular mode of subjectivation that cannot be understood outside of the ontological afterlives of colonialism.

(Poly-)Parenthood between project logic and gender identity

Romantic love unites a man and woman as a couple. The birth of a child confirms the righteousness of this union and prolongs it into eternity – so the myth goes. Simultaneously, the demand for a well-planed and economically optimized parenthood is increasing. How do (potential) non-monogamous parents deal with these multiple demands? Based on an intersectional multi-level-analysis of 13 interviews, the article describes three gender-specific modes of subjectivation: A strong self-identification with the ideal of the autonomous subject, deconstructing fatherhood while reproducing motherhood and poly-parenthood as a project of social planning. The article shows which narratives of personal development occur empirically in relation to relationship management and parenthood, and how these narratives are either reconciled or weighed against each other. It becomes clear that the idea of polyamory as a means for personal development is widespread and is partly accompanied by an ideal of individual independence of an autonomous subject which does not go well with parenthood. Deconstructing fatherhood while reproducing motherhood turns out to systematically reinforce traditional gendered modes of subjectivation. It also became evident that there is an underlying idea of community development in which children become a part of a comprehensive project of joint self-improvement

Re-examining Notions of Transnationalism, Cosmopolitanism and Xenophobia in Postcolonial Africa: A Textual Analysis of Teju Cole’s Open City

This article looks at how ideas of transnationalism, cosmopolitanism and xenophobia are dramatized in the postcolonial novel in the Teju Cole’s Open City. The article examined transnationalism and cosmopolitanism as the quest that compels characters in the novel to move out of their initial localities; interrogated how the selected novel attempts to re-read the transitional mode of subjectification occasioned by transnationalism, cosmopolitanism and xenophobic attacks on immigrants and established why the immigrants in the text face the xenophobic treatment and how they negotiate the cross-cultural complexities of their new worlds. This article leaned on Taiye Selasi’s Afropolitanism theory. The article used close reading of Open City, exploring themes and motifs in the text. Data was analysed using content and thematic analysis. The article found out that the notions of transnationalism, cosmopolitanism and xenophobia in postcolonial Africa have birthed new identities which have been engaged and interrogated by the Teju Cole in Open City. The paper concluded that the notion of Afropolitanism, with its focus on both rootedness and movement, must be understood as an effort to bring together two divergent frameworks for an understanding of African identity. This article will benefit scholars in the field of migrations, human rights, and globalisations by tackling and exposing the complex view of globalisation, a criticism that transcends national boundaries, colonial worldviews, and postcolonial geopolitics and is based on mutual informing assumptions. It benefits literary studies, especially identity studies and African studies, because it interrogates how migrations bring out new identities and how these new identities stretch the understanding of the new direction of African literature.

La clinique de la dépersonnalisation. Les destins du sens interne et la subjectivation de la vie dans la psychose. Le cas d’Aurélie

ObjectivesThe article presents a clinical study of depersonalization syndrome. MethodWe present a typical case of this state in order to investigate the destinys of the internal sense in psychopathology, as well as the modes of subjectivation of life in psychosis. ResultsThe detailed study of Aurélie's case allows us to understand that depersonalization syndrome confronts the patient with an experience of desubjectivation where the very existence of the psychological subject is put into question. DiscussionThis leads us to question the clinical aspect of this phenomenon. Indeed, descriptions that do not go beyond a simple observation of the disorder of certain psychic functions (such as sensitivity or perception) seem to miss the point: the fact that this syndrome describes a major defect in the subject's relationship with life. ConclusionIt seems necessary to develop a clinical questioning, which, beyond traditional semiology, would pose the question of psychopathological variations no longer as deviations from the norm, but as modes of the subjectivation of life.

Jóvenes y colectivos en barrios marginales de Monterrey: aproximaciones a la contingencia de vida y precarización de sí

The article analyzes the perceptions of young men and women who intervene in popular and marginal enclaves of the Monterrey metropolitan area, by means of educational and art projects. Conceptually I refer to them as cultural producers as they imagine their own autonomous production. This process, expressed in different modes of subjectivation, is also an instrument that constitutes functional effects of the biopolitical governmentality of western societies. The young members of the collectives go through a variety of aspects with their actions, such as political and cultural self-organization, forms of collaboration, and paid employment. The approach is based on the “contingency of life”, and the “precariousness of oneself” as ambivalent forms of self-government that oscillate between self-exploitation and modes of subjectivation, from which these groups perceive the risks and opportunities of the city as actionable and moldable.

The Itinerancy of Desire: Modes of Subjectivation and Territorialities in Dialogue with Néstor Perlongher

Resumo Este artigo pretende, em diálogo com Néstor Perlongher, analisar experiências de sujeitos em realidades urbanas que não se configuram como grandes cidades ou metrópoles do país. A partir de pesquisas realizadas em contextos marcados pelo deslocamento entre cidades de diferentes escalas, zonas fronteiriças e tensões entre distintos registros de moralidades, a obra de Perlongher nos possibilita subsidiar análises de espacialidades complexas no Brasil contemporâneo. A ênfase em narrativas pessoais, mobilidades e derivas, recurso utilizado por ele, ajuda-nos a perceber o alcance e a atualidade de sua obra.