Subjectification: the relevance of Butler’s analysis for education

Abstract

Abstract In this paper I explore the process of subjectification (sometimes also called subjectivation, or simply, subjection) through which one becomes a subject—a process that Butler describes in terms of simultaneous mastery and submission, entailing a necessary vulnerability to the other in order to be. I examine the conceptual work Butler has undertaken to extend the Foucauldian concept of subjectification, and I draw on some encounters between teachers and their students in order to make these processes of subjectification understandable in the context of education. I conclude the paper with some notes toward an ethics of classroom practice. Notes 1. Also sometimes called subjectivation, or simply, subjection. 2. As Rasmussen and Harwood (Citation2003, p. 28, citing Butler, Citation1993, Citation1994) point out, performance in Butler's framework is not what is anticipated in the usual dramaturgical model: Butler is very careful to distinguish the concept of performativity from notions of performance: 'while the latter presumes a subject, the former contests the very notion of the subject' (Citation1994: 33). Performativity is usually associated with speech act theory and 'in this framework, a performative is that discursive practice that enacts or produces that which it names' (Citation1993: 13). 3. An exception to this is Paula Smith's thesis later published as Mapping the Whirled (Smith, Citation2003)