Interpellation (philosophy)

The term interpellation is more common in French—the language in which Althusser originally introduced the concept—than in English. It comes from the French verb interpeller, meaning "call out [to someone]," "speak (abruptly) [to get someone's attention, to request something, or to insult someone]." This French verb also has several technical legal senses: to pose questions when interrogating a suspected criminal; to notify someone that one is legally obliged to do something; or a parliamentary summons to someone to account for oneself. Thus in both French and English, the noun interpellation denotes the act of interpellating someone. == Precursors ==

The German philosophers Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer employed a method of analysis similar to Althusser's notion of interpellation in their text Dialectic of Enlightenment, although they did so 26 years before Althusser's "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses" was published. Rather than situating their analysis heavily on the State, Adorno and Horkheimer argued that the mass media—the "culture industry"—also plays a role in the construction of passive subjects. So unlike the police officer in Althusser's example who reinforces the ideology of democracy and law, the mass media now plays a powerful complementary role in the creation of a passive consumer. However, whereas Althusser sought to make subjectivity a mere epiphenomenon of institutional interpellation, Adorno and Horkheimer insisted on a concept of subjectivity that was not limited to an institutional definition. They sought to expose tendencies favoring "total administration" over the individual and their subjective potential, while Althusser's analysis seemed only to confirm those tendencies. == Overview ==

In "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes Towards an Investigation)", Althusser introduces the concepts of ideological state apparatuses (ISAs) and repressive state apparatuses (RSAs), institutions which make up society and which are instrumental to the constant reproduction of the relations of production in that society. While RSAs are institutions that directly repress dissent and opposition (for example, the police and the military), ISAs (for example family, church, schools, the media and politics) reproduce capitalism through non-repressive ideological means. Consequently, interpellation describes the process by which ideology, embodied in major social and political institutions (ISAs and RSAs), constitutes the very nature of individual subjects' identities. Althusser sees interpellation as an act of "hailing" individuals through social interactions: "all ideology hails or interpellates concrete individuals as concrete subjects"; "ideology 'acts' or 'functions' in such a way that it ... 'transforms' the individual into subjects". == Other applications ==

Althusser's thought has made significant contributions to other French philosophers, notably Derrida, Kristeva, Barthes, Foucault, Deleuze, and Badiou. The feminist scholar and queer theorist Judith Butler critically applied a framework based on interpellation to highlight the social construction of gender identities. Butler argues that by hailing "It's a boy/girl," the newborn baby is ultimately positioned as subject. Media theorist David Gauntlett argues that "interpellation occurs when a person connects with a media text: when we enjoy a magazine or TV show, for example, this uncritical consumption means that the text has interpellated us into a certain set of assumptions, and caused us to tacitly accept a particular approach to the world." == References ==