interpellation

Louis Althusser

is like the w.C. Fields line: It ain't what they call you, it's what you answer to.

It ain't what they call you, it's what you answer to. W. C. Fields

is not just being called by some outside force of authority. Rather it concerns being recognized as a person by those closest to us as well, by those who have the most power to make us feel loved or unlovable.

for Butler, interpellation is not just being called (into subjectivity)... it is being recognized as a person, being able to see oneself as part of a community, a polity, a family, or any other kind of human group. That is to say , we are not simply called into subjecthood by impersonal forces of ideology or discourse. We are also called into ourselves by those closest to us those who have the most power to make us feel loved or unlovable' (The SAGE Handbook of Identities edited by Margaret Wetherell, Chandra Talpade Mohanty119-120)

is our symbolic identity which is conferred on us as a result of the way the ruling ideology sees us (as citizens, as democrats, as Christians, etc').

We are dealing here with what Louis Althusser called 'ideological interpellation': the symbolic identity conferred on us is the result of the way the ruling ideology 'interpellates' us as citizens, democrats or Christians. Hysteria emerges when a subject starts to question or to feel discomfort in his or her symbolic identity: 'You say I am your beloved what is there in me that makes me that' What do you see in me that causes you to desire me in that way'' (Zizek 2006a .pdf)

is the idea that the moment of subjective transformation (for example, in becoming a proletariat) occurs not at the moment of the act., at the moment of declaration.

interpellation, n.All

interpellation