SUBJECTIVITY – A PRIMEREDIND 852

The triple subjected subject The complexities of a poststructural theory of the

subject can be laid out as three interlocking and recursive moments wherein the subject is seen as:

the subject of discourse (knowledge, ideas about who and what the subject can be),

subjected in and through technologies of power (practices that work to produce the subject in particular ways),

and produced through practices of self (ways in which the subject is invited to act upon him/herself).

Discourse Refers to “…what can be said and thought, but

also about who can speak, when and with what authority. Discourses embody meaning and social relationships, they constitute both subjectivity and power relations” (Ball, 1990, p. 2.)

Discourse concerns how certain statements, ideas, and identities are made intelligible and ‘true’. Simply put, discourses are, “groups of related statements which cohere in some way to produce both meanings and effects in the real world” (Carabine, 2001, p. 268).

Discourse is, “locked in an intricate web of practices, bearing in mind that every practice is by definition both discursive and material” (Henriques et al., 1984, p. 106). Discourse and practice cannot be separated but are mutually constitutive and thus dependent on each other: discourses are performative/ practices are discursive.

Discourse - Subject Positions The subject is discursive because,

“persons come to ‘be’ ‘who’ they are by being intelligible within discourses, the bodies of meaning that frame social contexts” (Youdell, 2006b, p. 2).

This intelligibility is enabled through the creation of subject positions, which can be defined as “…empty spaces or functions in discourse from which to comprehend the world” (Barker & Galasiński, 2001, p. 13).

Practices (of power) Power/knowledge power is not knowledge (or vice versa),

rather, “it is not possible for power to be exercised without knowledge and it is impossible for knowledge not to engender power” (Prado, 2000, p. 71).

Self-practices To be a subject in this sense is to “define one’s

subjectivity by ‘learning’ what one is through internalization of the truths and knowledges power produces” (Prado, 2000, p. 69).

Self-practices are focused on how the self can act on itself, naming itself, finding itself within the discourses on offer at a particular time subjects participate in their own subjection subjects come to see themselves as particular

subjects, with individual, self-chosen attributes and values and identifications.

A simple example Attendance Discourse – around good students,

around the teacher Subject positions – made available to you in

these discourses Practice of Power – the technology of

taking attendance… knowledge/power Self-practices – you heard me call you,

and you need to respond. Interpellation…

Sex? Gender?Discourse, Practices of power, Self

Caster Semenya

The Discursive Field Constellations of meaning Male Masculine Rational Mind Culture Active

o Female

o Feminine

o Emotional

o Body

o Nature

o Passive

oDiscourse

oPractices

oSelf