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Engels themselves who set this work of non. But when we have said that we have le conj 1
revisionism in motion, But Althusser only said something about language at a ay to 1
was the key figure in modern theorizing very general level of abstraction: the level lence (
on this question who clearly broke with of "language-in-general." We have only urse, I
some of the old protocols and provided a begun our investigation. The more ate e>
persuasive alternative which remains important theoretical problem is to think es not
broadly within the terms of the marxist the specificity and difference of different
stract
problematic. This was a major theoreti languages, to examine the many deter 'jXlag
cal achievement, however much we may minations, in concrete analysis, of partic ually
now, in turn, wish to criticize and modify ular linguistic or cultural formations and #is prot
the terms of Althusser's break-through. I also the
the particular aspects which differentiate
LeI'," his
think Althusser is also correct to argue them from one another. Marx's insight
the latt
that this is the way the social formation is that critical thought moves away from
in fact theorized in Marx's "1857 Intro abstraction to the concrete-in-thought ;.state po
-.Fouc:
duction" to the Grundrisse (1953/1973), which is the result of many determina
Lqfcour:
his most elaborated methodological text. tions, is one of his most profound, most
·H1arxist
Another general advance which neglected epistemological propositions,
of. singl
Althusser offers is that he enabled me to which even Althusser himself somewhat
unified
live in and with difference. Althusser's misinterprets (cf. "Notes on the '1857
ing Cia
break with a monistic conception of Introduction' ", Hall, 1974).
ingtodc
marxism demanded the theorization of I have to add right away, however,
necessa
difference-the recognition that there that Althusser allows me to think "dif
thing.
are different social contradictions with ference" in a particular way, which is
think 0'
different origins; that the contradictions rather different from the subsequent tra
isa (
which drive the historical process for ditions which - sometimes acknowledge
means
ward do not always appear in the same him as their originator. If you look at
action,
place, and will not always have the same discourse theory,' for example-at post
is pi uri
historical effects. We have to think about structuralism or at Foucault-you will
It has v
the articulation between different con see there, :,not only the shift from practice cies bl
tradictions; about the different specifici to discourse, but also how the emphasis inscrib
ties and temporal durations through on difference-on the plurality of dis hand, t
which they operate, about the different courses, on the perpetual slippage of sites in
modalities through which they function. meaning, on the endless sliding of the tion wi
I think Althusser is right to point to a signifier-s-is now pushed beyond the
stubbornly monistic habit in the practice point where it is capable of theorizing
of many very distinguished marxists who the necessary unevenness of a complex togethe
are willing, for the sake of complexity, to unity, or even the "unity in difference" structu
play with difference so long as there is of a complex structure, I think that is discoui
the guarantee of unity further on up the why, whenever Foucault seems to be in concer
road. But the significant advances over danger of bringing things together, (such transrr
this delayed teleology are already to be as the many epistemic shifts he charts, er-so
found in the "1857 Introduction" to the which all fortuitously coincide with the to do 1
Grundrisse. There, Marx says, for shift from ancien regime to modern in being
example, of course all languages have France), he has to hasten to assure us which
some elements in common. Otherwise we that nothing ever fits with anything else. State,
wouldn't be able to identify them as The emphasis always falls on the contin socier,
belonging to the same social phenome uous slippage away from any conceiva
93
HALL
ble conjuncture. I think there is no other The State is the instance of the perfor
ave way to understand Foucault's eloquent mance of a condensation which allows
It a
silence on the subject of the State. Of thatsite of intersection between different
vel course, he will say, he knows that the practices to be transformed into a sys
nly State exists; what French intellectual tematic practice of regulation, of rule
Jre does not? Yet, he can only posit it as an and norm, of normalization, within soci
mk abstract, empty space-the State as ety. The State condenses very different
ent Gulag--the absent/present other of an social practices and transforms them into
er
equally abstract notion of Resistance. the operation of rule and domination
.ic
His protocol says: "not only the State but over particular classes and other social
nd
also the dispersed microphysics of pow groups. The way to reach such a concep
ate
er," his practice consistently privileges tualization is not to substitute difference
# the latter and ignores the existence of for its mirror opposite, unity, but to
im
state power. . rethink both in terms of a new concept
# Foucault (1972/1980) is quite correct, articulation." This is exactly the step
la-
of course, to say that there are many Foucault refuses.
ost
marxists who conceive the State as a. kind Hence we have to characterize
of single object; that is, as simply the Althusser's advance, not in terms of his
unified will of the committee of the Rul insistence on "difference" alone-the
ing Class, wherever it is currently m.t:;et rallying cry of Derridean deconstruc
ing today. From this conception flows~the tion-but instead in terms of the neces
necessary "yoking together" of every sity of thinking unity and difference;
thing. I agree that one can no longer difference in complex unity, without this
think of the State in that way. The State becoming a hostage to the privileging of
is a contradictory formation which difference as such. If Derrida (1977) is
means that it has different modes of correct in arguing that there is always a
action, is active in many different sites: it perpetual slippage of the signifier, a
is pluricentered and multi-dimensional. continuous "deference," it is also correct
It has very distinct and dominant tenden to argue that without some arbitrary
cies but it does not have a singly "fixing" or what I am calling "articula
inscribed class character. On the other tion," there would be no signification or
hand, the State remains one of the crucial meaning at all. What is ideology but,
sites in a modern capitalist social forma precisely, this work of fixing meaning
tion where political practices of different through establishing, by selection and
kinds are condensed. The function of the combination, a chain of equivalences?
State is, in part, precisely to bring That is why, despite all of its fault, I
together or articulate into a complexly want to bring forward to you, not the
structured instance, a range of political proto-Lacanian, neo-Foucauldian, pre
discourses and social practices which are Derridean, Althusserean text-"Ideo
Concerned at different sites with the logical State Apparatuses" (Althusser,
transmission and transformation of pow 1970/1971), but rather, the less theoreti
er-some of those practices having little cally elaborated but in my view more
to do with the political domain as such, generative, more original, perhaps be
being concerned with other domains cause more tentative text, For Marx
which are nevertheless articulated to the (Althusser, 1965/1969): and especially
State, for example, familial life, civil the essay "On Contradiction and Over
society, gender and economic relations. determination" (pp. 87-128), which
94
begins precisely to think about complex ical, legal, and ideological practices.e: nscious
kinds of determinacy without reduction they suppose-will conform to and ruggle. J
ism to a simple unity. (I have consis therefore be brought into a necessary n the OF
tently preferred For Marx to the more correspondence with what is-mistaken,. ruggle n
finished, more structuralist Reading ly-called "the economic." Now, as is by results, an
Capital [Althusser & Balibar, 1968/ now de rigueur in advanced post-struc which doe
1970]: a preference founded not only on turalist theorizing, in the retreat from "its origins
my suspicion of the whole Spinozean, "necessary correspondence" there has fan effecti
structuralist-causality machinery which been the usual unstoppable philosophi social fort
grinds through the latter text but also on cal slide all the way over to the opposite '1917, doe
my prejudice against the modish intellec side; that is to say, the elision into what that the
tual assumption that the "latest" is nec sounds almost the same but is in sub . product 0
essarily "the best.") I am not concerned stance radically different-the declara iat, unitec
here with the absolute theoretical rigor tion that there is "necessarily no corre ideology (
of For Marx: at the risk of theoretical spondence." Paul Hirst, one of the most decisive c\
eclecticism, I am inclined to prefer being sophisticated of the post-marxist theo lation to!
"right but not rigorous" to being "rigor rists, lent his considerable weight and soldiers a
ous but wrong." By enabling us to think authority to that damaging slippage. tute the s
about different levels and different kinds "Necessarily no correspondence" ex was guar
of determination, For Marx gave us presses exactly the notion essential to and posit
what Reading Capital did not: the ability discourse theory-that nothing really ture and
to theorize about real historical events, or connects with anything else. Even when tionary c
particular texts (The German Ideology, the analysis of particular discursive for Neverthe
Marx & Engels, 1970), or particular mations constantly reveals the overlay or Lenin suo
ideological formations (humanism) as the sliding of one set of discourses over result of
determined by more than one structure another, eyerything seems to hang on the situation:
(i.e., to think the process of overdeterrni polemical reiteration of the principle absolutel:
nation). I think "contradiction" and that there is, of necessity, no correspon absolute!'
"overdeterrnination" are very rich theo dence. strivings
retical concepts-one of Althusser's hap I do not accept that simple inversion. I 'harrnoni
pier "loans" from Freud and Marx; it is think what we have discovered is that Althusse
not the case, in my view, that their there is no necessary correspondence, For Mar
richness has been exhausted by the ways which is different; and this formulation a contra
in which they were applied by Althusser represents a third position. This means the stron
himself. that there is no law which guarantees principle
The articulation of difference and that the ideology of a class is already and of circui
unity invol ves a different way of trying to unequivocally given in or corresponds to whatever
conceptualize the key marxist concept of the position which that class holds in the 'fuse' int
determination. Some of the classical for economic relations of capitalist produc 1965/19
mulations of base/superstructure which tion. The claim of "no guarantee" ically-in
have dominated marxist theories of ide which breaks with teleology-also im surely be
ology, represent ways of thinking about plies that there is no necessary non articulat
determination which are essentially correspondence. That is, there is no forces a
based on the idea of a necessary corre guarantee that, under all circumstances, ideology
spondence between one level of a social ideology and class can never be articu tice to
formation and another. With or without lated together in any way or produce a gressive
immediate identity, sooner or later, polit social force capable for a time of self to be co
9S
CsMC HALL
reproduced. Nevertheless, we need both their appointed political places, as -arne tim
terms if we are to avoid the trap of Poulantzas so vividly described it, with neverthe
treating history as nothing but the out their number plates on their backs. By Althusser
come of an internally self-propelling developing practices which articulate' ctical a
structuralist machine. The structuralist differences into a collective will, or by cidental
dichotomy between "structure" and generating discourses which condense a ral. Hen
"practice"-like the related one between range of different connotations, the dis ply a
"synchrony" and "diachrony"-serves a persed conditions of practice of different eakness
useful analytic purpose but should not be social groups can be effectively drawn which es
fetishized into a rigid, mutally exclusive together in ways which make those social which we
distinction. forces not simply a class "in itself," After "C
Let us try to think a little further the positioned by some other relations over , nation,"
question, not of the necessity, but of the which it has no control, but also capable 'rhation a:
possibility of the articulations between of intervening as a historical force, a class . never ag:
social groups, political practices and "for itself," capable of establishing new . constitut
ideological formations which could cre collective projects. revolutio
ate, as a result, those historical breaks or These now appear to me to be the
shifts which we no longer find already generative advances which Althusser's
inscribed and guaranteed in the very work set in motion. I regard this reversal
structures and laws of the capitalist of basic concepts as of much greater Let m
mode of production. This must not be value than many of the other features of tion of i
read as arguing that there are no tenden his work which, at the time of their ideology
cies which arise from our positioning appearance.iso riveted Althusserian dis critique
within the structures of social relations. cipleship: Tor example, the question of "cal man
We must not allow ourselves to slip from whether the implicit traces of structur That is
an acknowledgment of the relative alist thought in Marx could be systemat reductio
autonomy of practice (in terms of its ically t~aIlsformed into a full blown that the
effects), to fetishizing Practice-the slip structuralism by means of the skillful ideologi
which made many post-structuralists application to it of a structuralist combi always
Maoists for a brief moment before they natory of the Levi-Straussean' variety social n
became subscribers to the "New Philoso the problematic of Reading Capital; or here is
phy" of the fashionable French Right. the clearly idealist attempt to isolate a insight
Structures exhibit tendencies-lines of so-called autonomous "theoretical prac The Ge
force, openings and closures which con tice;" or the disastrous conflation of his 1970)
strain, shape, channel and in that sense, toricism with "the historical" which marxist
"determine." But they cannot determine licensed a deluge of anti-historical theo ruling i
in the harder sense of fix absolutely, reticist speculation by his epigoni; or class pc
guarantee. People are not irrevocably even the ill-fated enterprise of substitut whole'
and indelibly inscribed with the ideas ing Spinoza for the ghost of Hegel in the located
that they ought to think; the politics that Marxist machine. The principal flaw in difficul
they ought to have are not, as it were, E. P. Thompson's (1978) anti-AI thus undersi
already imprinted in their sociological serean diatribe, The Poverty of Theory, actuall:
genes. The question is not the unfolding is not the cataloging of these and other real hi:
of some inevitable law but rather the fundamental errors of direction in differei
linkages which, although they can be Althusser's project-which Thompson one ide
made, need not necessarily be. There is was by no means the first to do-but there,
no guarantee that classes will appear in rather the inability to recognize, at the the mz
97
CSMC HALL
as same time, what real advances were, appropriate "ideas" through which the
zith nevertheless, being generated by interests of the dominant class are to be
By Althusser's work. This yielded an undia secured. Nor why, to a significant degree
late lectical assessment of Althusser, and in many different historical social forma
by incidentally, of theoretical work in gen tions, the dominated classes have used
re a eral. Hence the necessity, here, of stating "ruling ideas" to interpret and define
dis simply again what, despite his many their interests. To simply describe all of
'ent weaknesses, Althusser accomplished that as the dominant ideology, which
rwn which establishes a threshold behind unproblematically reproduces itself and
cial which we cannot allow ourselves to fall. which has gone on marching ahead ever
:If," After "Contradiction and Overdetermi since the free market first appeared, is an
rver nation," the debate about the social for unwarrantable forcing of the notion of
tble mation and determinacy in marxism will an empirical identity between class and
lass never again be the same. That in itself ideology which concrete historical analy
lew constitutes "an immense theoretical sis denies.
revolution. "
The second target of Althusser's criti
the
cism is the notion of "false conscious
er's
ness" which, he argues, assumes that
rsal
IDEOLOGY there is one true ascribed ideology per
Her Let me turn now to the specific ques class, and then explains its failure to
s of tion of ideology. Althusser's critique of manifest itself in terms of a screen which
reir ideology follows many of the lines of his falls between subjects and the real rela
dis critique of general positions in the classi tions in which subjects are placed, pre
1 of cal marxist problematic sketched above. venting them from recognizing the ideas
.ur That is to say, he is opposed to class which they ought to have. That notion of
rat reductionism in ideology-the notion "false consciousness," Althusser says
iwn that there is some guarantee that the quite rightly, is founded on an empiricist
lful ideological position of a social class will relationship to knowledge. It assumes
ibi always correspond to its position in the that social relations give their own,
y- social relations of production. Althusser unambiguous knowledge to perceiving,
,. or here is criticizing a very important thinking subjects; that there is a trans
.e a insight which people have taken from parent relationship between the situa
-ac The German Ideology (Marx & Engels, tions in which subjects are placed and
his 1970)-the founding text of the classical how subjects come to recognize and know
rich marxist theory of ideology: namely, that about them. Consequently, true knowl
teo- ruling ideas always correspond to ruling edge must be subject to a sort of masking,
or class positions; that the ruling class as a the source of which is very difficult to
:ut whole has a mind of its own which is identify, but which prevents people from
the located in a particular ideology. The "recognizing the real." In this con
{In difficulty is that this does not enable us to ception, it is always other people, never
us understand why all the ruling classes we ourselves, who are in false consciousness,
iry, actually know have actually advanced in who are bewitched by the dominant ide
her real historical situations by a variety of ology, who are the dupes of history.
in different ideologies or by now playing Althusser's third critique develops out
son one ideology and then another. Nor why of his notions about theory. He insists
Jut there are internal struggles, within all that knowledge has to be produced as the
the the major political formations, over the consequence of a particular practice.
98
Knowledge, whether ideological or duction themselves but outside of them. indeed <
scientific, is the production of a practice. Of course, he does not mean biologically This is (
It is not the reflection of the real in or technically reproduced only, he means he dives
discourse, in language. Social relations socially and culturally as well. It is pro out witl
have to be "represented in speech and duced in the domain of the superstruc wide m:
language" to acquire meaning. Meaning tures: in institutions like the family and gives it
is produced as a result of ideological or church. It requires cultural institutions is speci
theoretical work. It is not simply a result such as the media, trade unions, political continu:
of an empiricist epistemology. . parties, etc., which are not directly alist cas
As a result, Althusser wants to think linked with production as such but I
j
Ther
the specificity of ideological practices, to which have the crucial function of "culti
Ideolog:
think their difference from other social vating" labor of a certain moral and
stantial
practices. He also wants to think "the cultural kind-that which the modern
there is
complex unity" which articulates the capitalist mode of production requires.
classes,
level of ideological practice to other Schools, universities, training boards and
perfectl
instances of a social formation. And so, research centers reproduce the technical
interest
using the critique of the traditional con competence of the labor required by
capitali
ceptions of ideology which he found in advanced systems of capitalist produc
point,
front of him, he set to work to offer some tion. But Althusser reminds us that a
open to
alternatives. Let me look briefly at what technically competent but politically
against
these alternatives are, for Althusser. insubordinate labor force is no labor
tionalis
force at all for capital. Therefore, the
functioi
more important task is cultivating that
the dor
"IDEOLOGICAL STATE gy), to I
kind of labor which is able and willing,
APPARATUSES" perforn
morally and politically, to be subordi
I
The one with which everybody is nated to the discipline, the logic, the
counter
familiar is presented in the "Ideological culture and compulsions of the economic
propositions in that essay have had a ment, at whatever stage it has arrived;
very strong influence or resonance in the that is, labor which can be subjected to
I
I
always
discuss:
concept
in Cap
subsequent debate. First of all Althusser the dominant system ad infinitum. Con
you asl
tries to think the relationship between sequently, what ideology does, through
ideolog
ideology and other social practices in the various ideological apparatuses, is to
domina
reprodi
tance,
there a
there a
tion. The social relations of production Reproduction in that sense is, of
are necessary to the material existence of course, a classic term to be found in gy, wh
any social formation or any mode of Marx. Althusser doesn't have to go any the sc
production. But the elements or the further than Capital (Marx, 1970) to accoun
agents of a mode of production, espe discover it; although it should be said or its
cially with respect to the critical factor of that he gives it a very restrictive defini reprod
their labor, has itself to be continually tion. He refers only to the reproduction adjuste
produced and reproduced. Althusser of labor power, whereas reproduction in eounte:
argues that, increasingly in capitalist Marx is a much wider concept, including contra.
social formations, labor is not repro the reproduction of the social relations of Struggl
duced inside the social relations of pro possession and of exploitation, and ¢()ncep
99
CsMC HALL
, them: indeed of the mode of production itself. The second influential proposition in
gically This is quite typical of Althusser-when the "Ideological State Apparatuses"
means he dives into the marxist bag and comes essay is the insistence that ideology is a
IS pro out with a term or concept which has practice. That is, it appears in practices
rstruc wide marxist resonances, he quite often located within the rituals of specific
lyand gives it a particular limiting twist which "apparatuses or social institutions and
utions is specifically his own. In this way, he organizations. Althusser makes the dis
}litical continually "firms up" Marx's structur tinction here between repressive state
irectly alist cast of thought. apparatuses, like the police and the
h but There is a problem with this position. army, and ideological state apparatuses,
'culti Ideology in this essay seems to be, sub like churches, trade unions, and media
1 and stantially, that of the dominant class. If which are not directly organized by the
iodern there is an ideology of the dominated State. The emphasis on "practices and
[uires. classes, it seems to be one which is rituals" is wholly welcome, especially if
is and perfectly adapted to the functions and not interpreted too narrowly or polemi
finical interests of the dominant class within the cally. Ideologies are the frameworks of
-d by capitalist mode of production. At this thinking and calculation about the
oduc point, Althusserean structuralism is world-the "ideas" which people use to
hat a open to the charge, which has been made figure out how the social world works,
ically against it, of a creeping marxist func what their place is in it and what they
labor tionalism. Ideology seems to perform the ought to do. But the problem for a mate
~, the function required of it (i.e., to reproduce rialist or nonidealist theory is how to
~ that the dominance of the dominant ideolo deal with ideas, which are mental events,
lling, gy), to perform it effectively, and togo on and therefore, as Marx says, can only
iordi- performing it, without encountering any occur "in thought, in the head" (where
, the counter-tendencies (a second concept else ?), in a nonidealist, nonvulgar mate
iomic always to be found in Marx wherever he rialist manner. Althusser's emphasis is
elop discusses reproduction and precisely the helpful, here-helping us out of the phil
-ived; concept which distinguishes the analysis osophical dilemma, as well as having the
ed to in Capital from functionalism). When addi tional virtue, in my view, of being
Con you ask about the contradictory field of right. He places the emphasis on where
ough ideology, about how the ideology of the ideas appear, where mental events regis
is to dominated classes gets produced and ter or are realized, as social phenomena.
due- reproduced, about the ideologies of resis That is principally, of course, in lan
t is tance, of exclusion, of deviation, etc., guage (understood in the sense of sig
there are no answers in this essay. Nor is nifying practices involving the use of
, of there an account of why it is that ideolo signs; in the semiotic domain, the domain
d in gy, which is so effectively stitched into of meaning and representation). Equally
any the social formation in Althusser's important, in the rituals and practices of
I) to account, would ever produce its opposite social action or behavior, in which ide
said Or its contradiction. But a notion of ologies imprint or inscribe themselves.
fini reproduction which is only functionally Language and behavior are the media, so
.tion adjusted to capital and which has no to speak, of the material registration of
nm countervailing tendencies, encounters no ideology, the modality of its functioning.
iing contradictions, is not the site of class These rituals and practices always occur
IS of struggle, and is utterly foreign to Marx's in social sites, linked with social appara
and conception of reproduction. tuses. That is why we have to analyze or
100
bers of journalists, consulting only their begin to make sense of how complex are
"freedom" to publish and be damned, do the processes by which capitalism must
tend to reproduce, quite spontaneously, work to order and organize a civil society
without compulsion, again and again, which is not, technically, under its
accounts of the world constructed within immediate control. These are important
fundamentally the same ideological cate problems in the field of ideology and
gories? How is it that they are driven, culture which the formulation, "ideolog
again and again, to such a limited reper ical state apparatuses," encourages us to
toire within the ideological field? Even evade.
journalists who write within the muck The third of Althusser's propositions
raking tradition often seem to be is his affirmation that ideology only
inscribed by an ideology to which they do exists by virtue of the constituting cate
not consciously commit themselves, and gory of the "subject." There is a long and
which, instead, "writes them." complicated story here, only part of
This is the aspect of ideology under which I have time to rehearse. I have said
liberal capitalism which most needs elsewhere" that Reading Capital is very
explaining. And that is why, when similar in its mode of argumentation to
people say "Of course this is a free Levi-Strauss and other non-marxist
society; the media operate freely," there structuralists. Like Levi-Strauss (1958/
is no point in responding "No, they 1972), Althusser also talks about social
operate only through compulsion by the relations as processes without a subject.
State." Would that they did! Then all Similarly, when Althusser insists that
that would be required would be to pull classes are simply "bearers and sup
out the four or five of their key control ports" of economic social relations, he,
lers and put in a few controllers of our like Levi-Strauss, is using a Saussurean
own. In fact ideological reproduction can conception of language, applied to the
no more be explained by the inclinations domain of practice in general, to displace
of individuals or by overt coercion (social the traditional agent/subject of classical
control) than economic reproduction can western epistemology. Althusser's posi
be explained by direct force. Both expla tion here is very much in line with the
nations-and they are analogous-have notion that language speaks us, as the
to begin where Capital begins: with ana myth "speaks" the myth-maker. This
lyzing how the "spontaneous freedom" abolishes the problem of subjective iden
of the circuits actually work. This is a tification and of how individuals or
problem which the "ideological state groups become the enunciators of ideolo
apparatus" nomenclature simply fore gy. But, as Althusser develops his theory
closes. Althusser refuses to distinguish of ideology, he moves away from the
between state and civil society (on the notion that ideology is simply a process
same grounds which Poulantzas (1968/ without a subject. He seems to take on
1975) also later spuriously supported board the critique that this domain of the
i.e., that the distinction belonged only subject and subjectivity cannot be simply
within "bourgeois ideology"). His no left as an empty space. The "decentering
menclature does not give sufficient of the subject," which is one of structur
weight to what Gramsci would call the alism's main projects, still leaves unset
immense complexities of society in mod tled the problem of the subjectification
ern social formations-"the trenches and and subjectivizing of ideology. There are
fortifications of civil society." It does not still processes of subjective effect to be
102
accounted for. How do concrete individ rate compartments, a fatal dislocation :an d that is
uals fall into place within particular occurred. What was originally conceived itive discou
ideologies if we have no notion of the as one critical element in the general :bifurcatior
subject or of subjectivity? On the other theory of ideology-the theory of the had the me
hand, we have to rethink this question in subject-came to be substituted, meto unever
a way different from the tradition of nymically, for the whole of the theory Opment of
empiricist philosophy. This is the begin itself. The enormously sophisticated the to spe
ning of a very long development, which ories which have subsequently developed
begins in the "Ideological State Appara have therefore all been theories about the
tuses" essay, with Althusser's insistence second question: How are subjects con
that all ideology functions through the stituted in relation to different dis
IDEOI
category of the subject, and it is only in courses? What is the role of unconscious Instead
and for ideology that subjects exist. processes in creating these positionali paths, I w:
This "subject" is not to be confused ties? That is the object of discourse the for a mom
with lived historical individuals. It is the ory and linguisticall y-influenced psycho five startii
category, the position where the sub analysis. Or one can inquire into the which I tl
ject-the I of ideological statements-is conditions of enunciation in a particular be made ..
constituted. Ideological discourses them discursive formation. That is the prob the "advar
selves constitute us as subjects for dis lematic of Foucault. Or one can inquire cal State i
course. Althusser explains how this into the unconscious processes by which said, in a
works through the concept, borrowed subjects and subjectivity as such are con (1965/19(
from Lacan (1966/1977), of "interpella stituted. That is the problematic of things abo
tion." This suggests that we are hailed or Lacan. There has thus been considerable ing and th
summoned by the ideologies which theorizing on the site of the second part defined id.
recruit us as their "authors," their essen of the "Ideological State Apparatuses" terns of
tial subject. Weare constituted by the essay. But on the site of the first part concepts,
unconscious processes of ideology, in that nothing. Finito! The inquiry simply which me
posi tion of recognition or fixt ure halted with Althusser's inadequate for live their
between ourselves and the signifying mulations about the reproduction of the conditions
chain without which no signification of social relations of production. The two worth exa
ideological meaning would be possible. It sides of the difficult problem of ideology The de:
is precisely from this turn in the argu were fractured in that essay and, ever terns of
ment that the long trail into psychoanal since, have been assigned to different their esse:
ysis and post-structuralism (and finally poles. The question of reproduction has character.
out of the marxist problematic) un been assigned to the marxist, (male) the syster
winds. pole, and the question of subjectivity has we repres
There is something both profoundly been assigned to the psychoanalytic, one anoth
important and seriously regretable about (feminist) pole. Since then, never have logical kn
the shape of this "Ideological State the twain met. The latter is constituted practices
Apparatuses" essay. It has to do exactly as a question about the "insides" of productio
with its two part structure: Part I is people, about psychoanalysis, subjectiv are no SOl
about ideology and the reproduction of ity and sexuality, and is understood to be outside th
the social relations of production. Part II "about" that. It is in this way and on this ic), are al,
is about the constitution of subjects and site that the link to feminism has been Here VI
how ideologies interpellate us in the increasingly theorized. The former is We are i
realm of the Imaginary. As a result of "about" social relations, production and suppresse
treating those two aspects in two sepa the "hard edge" of productive systems, Althusser
103
CSMC HALL
Dcation. and that is what marxism and the reduc float around in empty space. We know
lceived tive discourses of class are "about." This they are there because they are material
jeneral bifurcation of the theoretical project has ized in, they inform, social practices. In
of the had the most disastrous consequences for that sense, the social is never outside of
meto the unevenness of the subsequent devel the semiotic. Every social practice is con
theory opment of the problematic of ideology, stituted within the interplay of meaning
~d the not to speak of its damaging political and representation and can itself be rep
eloped effects. resented. In other words, there is no
Jut the social practice outside of ideology. How
.s COn ever, this does not mean that, because all
IDEOLOGY IN FOR MARX social practices are within the discursive,
t dis
ISClOus Instead of following either of these there is nothing to social practice but
ionali paths, I want to break from that impasse discourse. I know what is vested in
ie the for a moment and look at some alterna describing processes that we usually talk
sycho. tive starting points in Althusser, from about in terms of ideas as practices;
to the which I think, useful advances can still "practices" feel concrete. They occur in
icular be made. Long before he had arrived at particular sites and apparatuses-like
prob the "advanced" position of the "Ideologi classrooms, churches, lecture theatres,
iquire cal State Apparatuses" essay, Althusser factories, schools and families. And that
which said, in a short section in For Marx concreteness allows us to claim that they
~ con (1965/1969, pp. 231-236), some simple are "material." Yet differences must be
:ic of things about ideology which beat/repeat remarked between different kinds of
erable ing and thinking about. This iswhere he practice. Let me suggest one. If you are
I part defined ideologies as, to paraphrase, sys engaged in a part of the modern capi
uses" tems of representation-composed of talist labor process, you are using, in
art concepts, ideas, myths, or images-in combination with certain means of pro
mply which men and women (my addition) duction, labor power-purchased at a
~ for live their imaginary relations to the real certain price-to transform raw materi
if the conditions of existence. That statement is als into a product, a commodity. That is
~ two worth examining bit by bit. the definition of a practice-the practice
ology The designation of ideologies as "sys of labor. Is it outside of meaning and
ever tems of representation" acknowledges discourse? Certainly not. How could
erent their essentially discursive and semiotic large numbers of people either learn that
1 has character. Systems of representation are practice or combine their labor power in
nale) the systems of meaning through which the division of labor with others, day
V has we represent the world to ourselves and after day, unless labor was within the
lytic, one another. It acknowledges that ideo domain of representation and meaning?
have logical knowledge is the result of specific Is this practice of transformation, then,
:uted practices-the practices involved in the nothing but a discourse? Of course not. It
" of production of meaning. But since there does not follow that because all practices
ctiv are no social practices which take place are in ideology, or inscribed by ideology,
to be outside the domain of meaning (semiot all practices are nothing but ideology.
. this ic), are all practices simply discourses? There is a specificity to those practices
been Here we have to tread very carefully. whose principal object is to produce ideo
:r IS We are in the presence of yet another logical representations. They are dif
and suppressed term or excluded middle. ferent from those practices which
ems, Althusser reminds us that ideas don't just meaningfully, intelligibly-produce
104
CsMC HALL
tion of the term "live" is that it connotes account be confused with the real. It is
the domain of experience. It is in and only later in his work that this domain
through the systems of represen tation of becomes the "Imaginary" in a proper
culture that we "experience" the world: Lacaniarr' sense. It may be that he
experience is the product of o~r codes of already had Lacan in mind in this earlier
intelligibility, our schemas of interpreta essay, but he is not yet concerned to
tion. Consequently, there is no experi affirm that knowing and experiencing
encing outside of the categories of repre are only possible through the particular
sentation or ideology. The notion that psychoanalytic process which Lacan has
our heads are full of false ideas which posited. Ideology is described as imagi
can, however, be totally dispersed when nary simply to distinguish it from the
we throw ourselves open to "the real" as notion that "real relations" declare their
part 0
a moment of absolute authentication, is own meanings unambiguously.
gy-the
probably the most ideological conception Finally, let us consider Althusser's use
ich men"
of all. This is exactly that moment of of this phrase, "the real conditions of
inverted
"recognition" when the fact that mean existence"-scandalous (within contem
use he
ing depends on the intervention of sys porary cultural theory) because here
.etic life,
tems of representation disappears and Althusser commits himself to the notion
hin cul
we seem secure within the naturalistic that social relations actually exist apart
m. It is
attitude. It is a moment of extreme ideo from their ideological representations or
, an end
logical closure. Here we are most under experiences. Social relations do exist. We
lYS need
the sway of the highly ideological struc are born into them. They exist indepen
epresent
tures of all-common sense, the regime dent of our will. They are real in their
and to
of the "taken for granted." The point at structure and tendency. We cannot
t point
which we lose sight of the fact that sense develop a social practice without repre
) under
is a production of our systems of repre senting those conditions to ourselves in
.ans that
sentation is the point at which we fall, one way or another; but the representa
systems
not into Nature but into the naturalistic tions do not exhaust their effect. Social
nterpret
illusion: the height (or depth) of ideolo relations exist, independent of mind,
itions of
gy. Consequently, when we contrast independent of thought. And yet they can
ideology
ideology to experience, or illusion to only be conceptualized in thought, in the
.o-called
authentic truth, we are failing to recog head. That is how Marx (1953/1973)
the real
nize that there is no way of experiencing put it in the "1857 Introduction" to the
ecessary
the "real relations" of a particular soci Grundrisse. It is important that
.nditions
ety outside of its cultural and ideological Althusser affirms the objective character
and the
categories. That is not to say that all of the real relations that constitute modes
ch it can
knowledge is simply the product of our of production in social formations,
I that, as
will-to-power; there may be some ideo though his later work provided the war
e theory
logical categories which give us a more rant for a quite different theorization.
ot know
adequate or more profound knowledge of Althusser here is closer to a "realist"
1 except
particular relations than others. philosophical position than his later
has no
Because there is no one to one rela Kantian or Spinozean manifestations.
achinery
tionship between the conditions of social N ow I want to go beyond the particu
tdy well
existence we are living and how we lar phrase I have been explicating to
ntroduc
experience them, it is necessary for expand on two or three more general
'eted by
Althusser to call these relationships things associated with this formulation.
"imaginary." That is, they must on no Althusser says these systems of represen
implica-
106
CSMC HALL
ses. It is assertion which so far suggests that they hood .... A mass of research remains to
o operate provide the sufficient concrete conditions be done on these ideological formations.
sible the for the enunciation of historically spe This is a task for historical materialism"
hers and cific and differentiated ideologies. Dis (p. 211). But in the later formulations,
xtricably course theory one-sidedly insists that an . (and even more so in the Lacanian
vith the . account of subjectivity in terms of deluge which has subsequently followed)
bove all, Lacan's unconscious processes is itself this kind of caution has been thrown to
and, it is the whole theory of ideology. Certainly, the wind in a veritable riot of affirma
ven that a theory of ideology has to develop, as tion. In the familiar slippage, "the
itute the earlier marxist theories did not, a theory unconscious is structured like a lan
iividuals of subjects and subjectivity. It must guage" has become "the unconscious is
e are not account for the recognition of the self the same as the entry into language,
iur rela within ideological discourse, what it is culture, sexual identity, ideology, and so
orically that allows subjects to recognize them on."
; exclu selves in the discourse and to speak it What I have tried to do is to go back to
vhen we spontaneousl y as its author. But that is a much simpler and more productive
iological not the same as taking the Freudian way of beginning to think about ideolo
st e n ce " schema, reread in a linguistic way by gy, which I also find in Althusser's work
" 1970/ Lacan, as an adequate theory of ideology though not at the fashionable end of it.
m to be in social formations. Recognizing that, in these matters
nt ways, Althusser himself appeared, earlier though our conceptual apparatus is
out our (in his "Freud And Lacan" essay, first extremely sophisticated and "advanced,"
written in 1964 and published in in terms of real understanding, substan
xisition Althusser, 1970/1971), to recognize the tive research, and progress to knowledge
primary necessarily provisional and speculative in a genuinely "open" (i.e., scientific)
I in the nature of Lacan's propositions. He way-we are very much at the beginning
pl ex. It repeated the succession of "identities" of a long and difficult road. In terms of
subjects through which Lacan's argument is sus this "long march," For Marx is earlier
the field tained-the transition from biological to than the flights of fancy, and occasionally
solution human existence paralleling the Law of of fantasy, which overtake the "Ideologi
infancy. Order, which is the same as the Law of cal State Apparatuses" essay. It ought
discur Culture, which "is confounded in its not, however, be left behind for that
forma formal essence with the order of lan reason alone. "Contradiction and Over
ently in guage" (p. 193). But he does then pick determination" contains a richer notion
,f social up the purely formal nature of these of determination than Reading Capital,
assume homologies in a footnote: "Formally: for though not so rigorously theorized. For
re indi the Law of Culture which is first intro Marx has a fuller notion of ideology than
zt all duced as language ... is not exhausted does "Ideological State Apparatuses,"
as that by language; its content is the real kin though it is not as comprehensive.
iunciate ship structures and the determinate ideo
.ndered, logical formations in which the persons
ual in a inscribed in these structures live their READING AN
niversal the Western family is patriarchal and Let me take a brief, personal example
exogamic ... we must also work out the as an indication of how some of the
ideological formations that govern pater things I have said about Althusser's gen
nity, maternity, conjugality and child- eral concept of ideology allow us to think
108
. CsMC HALL
'aded clas ways of representing me, though I have the unspoken, the unsayable. Meaning is
iecause of been all of them at different times and relational within an ideological system of
istinctions still am some of them to some degree. presences and absences. "Fort, da."
sted on the But, there is no essential, unitary "1" Althusser, in a controversial passage
mg to it only the fragmentary, contradictory sub: in the "Ideological State Apparatuses"
e ultimate ject I become. Long after, I encountered essay says that we are "always-already"
You can "coloured" again, now as it were from subjects. Actually Hirst and others con
ere to dis the other side, beyond it. I tried to teach test this. If we are "always-already"
Ingland, I my son he was "black" at the same time subjects, we would have to be born with
re natives as he was learning the colors of the the structure of recognitions and the
r as they spectrum and he kept saying to me that means to positioning ourselves with lan
practical he was "brown." Of course, he was guage already formed. Whereas Lacan,
hort, car both. from whom Althusser and others draw,
s because Certainl y I am from the West uses Freud and Saussure to provide an
ystems of Indies-though I've lived my adult life account of how that structure of recogni
It is the in England. Actually, the relationship tions is formed (through the mirror
:ignifying . between "West-Indian" and "immi phase and the resolutions of the Oedipus
Ie literal, grant" is very complex for me. In the complex, etc.). However, let us leave that
an ISo 1950s, the two terms were equivalents. objection aside for a moment, since a
. position N ow, the term "West Indian" is very larger truth about ideology is implied in
romantic. It connotes reggae, rum-and what Althusser says. We experience ide
organized coke, shades, mangoes, and all that ology as if it emanates freely and sponta
sification canned tropical fruit-salad falling out of neously from within us, as if we were its
s of race, the coconut trees. This is an idealized free subjects, "working by ourselves."
up to the "I." (I wish I felt more like that more of Actually, we are spoken by and spoken
atter al the time.) "Immigrant" I also know well. for, in the ideological discourses which
)le, "ab There is nothing remotely romantic await us even at our birth, into which we
ce struc about that. It places one so equivocally as are born and find our place. The new
re bitter
really belonging somewhere else. "And born child who still, according to
n which . when are you going back home?" Part of Althusser's reading of Lacan, has to
-s, every Mrs. Thatcher's "alien wedge." Actu acquire the means of being placed within
foundly. ally I only understood the way this term the law of Culture, is already expected,
ast, was positioned me relatively late in life-and named, positioned in advance "by the
binary the "hailing" on that occasion came from forms of ideology (paternal/maternal/
:he colo an unexpected direction. It was when my conjugal/fraternal). "
, Mean
mother said to me, on a brief visit home: The observation puts me in mind of a
n of the "I hope they don't mistake you over there related early experience. It is a story
iugh the for one of those immigrants!" The shock frequently retold in my family-with
ad cate of recognition. I was also on many occa great humor all round, though I never
, which sions "spoken" by that other, absent, saw the joke; part of our family lore
it to be unspoken term, the one that is never that when my mother first brought me
) social there, the "American" one, undignified home from the hospital at my birth, my
even by a capital "N." The "silence" sister looked into my crib and said,
around this term was probably the most "Where did you get this Coolie baby
eloquent of them all. Positively marked from?" "Coolies" in Jamaica are East
terms "signify" because of their position Indians, deriving from the indentured
in relation to what is absent, unmarked, laborers brought into the country after
110
Abolition to replace the slaves in planta discourses do have the function of "re ry",-;-fo
tion labor. "Coolie" is, if possible, one producing the social relations of produ-, jamaica]
rung lower in the discourse of race than tion." And yet, in contemporary Carib !'Ir:js pes
"black." This was my sister's way of bean societies, the two systems do not eta of soci
remarking that, as often happens in the perfectly correspond. There are "blacks" '~iii,Britain, i
best of mixed families, I had come out a at the top of the ladder too, some of them d genera
good deal darker-skinned than was aver exploiters of other black labor, and some cbntradictic
age in my family. I hardly know any firm friends of Washington's. The world (ot which h
more whether this really happened or neither divides neatly into its socialj :'t~fent mod
was a manufactured story by my family natural categories, nor do ideological :ar±d classif
or even perhaps whether I made it up categories necessarily produce their own ays.Then
and have now forgotten when and why. "appropriate" modes of consciousness. .~pecific soci
But I felt, then and now, summoned to Weare therefore obliged to say that .'*fay in whi
my "place" by it. From that moment there is a complicated set of articulations ,ilTticulated
onwards, my place within this system of between the two systems of discourse. particular
reference has been problematic. It may The relationship of equivalences be Socia:! posi 1
help to explain why and how I eventu tween them is not fixed but has changed sUbject to a
ally become what I was first nominated: historically. Nor is it "determined" by a <'J.·reby def
the "Coolie" of my family, the one who single cause but rather the result of an look at the
did not fit, the outsider, the one who "over-determination. " between the
hung around the street with all the These discourses therefore clearly which they
wrong people, and grew up with all construct Jamaican society as a field of another in <
those funny ideas. The Other one. social difference organized around the ideological
What is the contradiction that gener categories of race, color and ethnicity. particular I
ates an ideological field of this kind? Is it Ideology here has the function of assign has. We cal
"the principal contradiction between ing a population into particular classifi in which a
capital and labor?" This signifying cations organized around these catego . very drffere
chain was clearly inaugurated at a spe ries. In the articulation between the of the diff
cific historical moment-the moment of discourses of class and race-color-ethnic became at tl
slavery. It is not eternal, or universal. It ity, (and the displacement effected Now let
was the way in which sense was made of between them which this makes possi "black" wi
the insertion of the enslaved peoples of ble), the latter is constituted as the "dom field or ideo
the coastal kingdoms of West Africa in to inant" discourse, the categories through as a single
the social relations of forced labor pro which the prevailing forms of conscious connotation
duction in the New World. Leave aside ness are generated, the terrain within The first is
for a moment the vexed question of which men and women "move, acquire ful, artful,
whether the mode of production in slave consciousness of their position, struggle, identificatio
etc." (Gramsci, 1971, p. 377), the sys cific historu
societies was "capitalist" or "pre-capi
talist" or an articulation of both within tems of representation through which the ery. This r
the global market. In the early stages of people "live the imaginary relation to distinction '
their real conditions of existence" lated by tl
development, for all practical purposes,
given simpl
the racial and the class systems over (Althusser, 1965/1969, p. 233). This
analysis is not an academic one, valuable diction, the
lapped. They were "systems of equiva
of that spec
lence." Racial and ethnic categories con only for its theoretical and analytic dis
referent in t
tinue today to be the forms in which the tinctions. The overdetermination of class
matron. Ir
structures of domination and exploita and race has the most profound conse
"black," wii
tion are "lived." In that sense, these quences-some of them highly contra
111
CSMC HALL
dictory-for the politics of Jamaica, and is a way of representing how the peoples
l of "re
of Jamaican blacks everywhere. of a distinctive ethnic character were first
produc
It is possible, then, to examine the inserted into the social relations of pro
y Carib
field of social relations, in Jamaica and duction. But of course, that chain of
s do not
in Britain, in terms of an interdiscursive connotations is not the only one. An
"blacks"
field generated by at least three different. entirely different one is generated within
: of them
contradictions (class, race, gender), each the powerful religious discourses which
nd some
of which has a different history, a dif have so raked the Caribbean: the associa
1e world
ferent mode of operation; each divides tion of Light with God and the spirit,
social/
and classifies the world in different and of Dark or "blackness" with Hell,
eological
ways. Then it would be necessary, in any the Devil, sin and damnation. When I
ieir own
specific social formation, to analyze the was a child and I was taken to church by
ousness.
way in which class, race and gender are one of my grandmothers, I thought the
,ay that
articulated with one another to establish black minister's appeal to the Almighty,
.ulations
particular condensed social positions. "Lord, lighten our darkness," was a
iscourse.
Social positions, we may say, are here quite specific request for a bit of personal
Ices be
changed subject to a "double articulation." They divine assistance.
ed" by a are by definition over-determined. To
11t of an look at the overlap or "unity" (fusion)
IDEOLOGICAL STRUGGLE
between them, that is to say, the ways in
clearly which they connote or summon up one It is important to look at the semantic
field of another in articulating differences in the field within which any particular ideo
und the ideological field, does not obviate the logical chain signifies. Marx reminds us
thnicity. particular effects which each structure that the ideas of the past weigh like a
f assign has. We can think of political situations nightmare on the brains of the living.
classifi in which alliances could be drawn in The moment of historical formation is
cat ego very different ways, depending on which critical for any semantic field. These
een the of the different articulations in play semantic zones take shape at particular
'-ethnic became at that time dominant ones. historical periods: for example, the for
effected Now let us think about this term, mation of bourgeois individualism in the
.s pOSSl "black" within a particular semantic 17th and 18th centuries in England.
e "dom field or ideological formation rather than They leave the traces of their connec
through as a single term: within its chain of tions, long after the social relations to
nscious connotations. I give just two examples. which they referred have disappeared.
within The first is the chain-e-black-Iazy, spite These traces can be re-activated at a later
acquire ful, artful, etc., which flows from the stage, even when the discourses have
;truggle, identification of /black/ at a very spe fragmented as coherent or organic ide
the sys cific historical moment the era of slav ologies. Common sense thinking contains
hich the ery. This reminds us that, though the what Gramsci called the traces of ideol
ation to distinction "black/white" that is articu ogy "without an inventory." Consider,
stence" lated by this particular chain, is not for example, the trace of religious think
I). This given simply by the capital-labor contra ing in a world which believes itself to be
zaluable diction, the social relations characteristic secular and which, therefore, invests
ytic dis of that specific historical moment are its "the sacred" in secular ideas. Although
. of class referent in this particular discursive for the logic of the religious interpretation of
i conse mation. In the West Indian case, terms has been broken, the religious
contra- "black," with this connotative resonance, repertoire continues to trail through his
112
ALTHUSSER AND POST-STRUCTURALIST DEBATES
tory, usable in a variety of new historical in the later 1960s and 1970s, when for ent has ai
contexts, reinforcing and underpinning the first time the people acknowledged e term i
more apparently "modern" ideas. and accepted their African-slave-black signified ev
In this context, we can locate the heritage, and the fulcrum or center of .f~spected,
possibility for ideological struggle. A gravity of the society shifted to "the "beautiful,'
particular ideological chain becomes a roots," to the life and common experi ;social id er
site of struggle, not only when people try ence of the black urban and rural under ngenders 1
to displace, rupture or contest it by sup classes as representing the cultural then, exists
planting it with some wholly new alter essence of "Jamaican-ness" (this is the the conte
native set of terms, but also when they moment of political radicalization, of meanmg, a
interrupt the ideological field and try to mass mobilization, of solidarity with that cont
transform its meaning by changing or black struggles for liberation elsewhere, I could.
re-articulating its associations, for exam of "soul brothers" and "Soul," as well as category or
ple, from the negative to the positive. of reggae, Bob Marley and Rastafarian have orgar
Often, ideological struggle actually con ism), "black" became reconstituted as its which erne
sists of attempting to win some new set of opposite. It became the site for the con developed.
meanings for an existing term or catego struction of "unity," of the positive rec which has
ry, of dis-articulating it from its place in ognition of "the black experience": the whole soci
a signifying structure. For example, it is moment of the constitution of a new whole dire
precisely because "black" is the term collective subject-the "struggling black political m
which connotes the most despised, the masses." This transformation in the history of ,
dispossessed, the unenlightened, the meaning, position and reference of thereby to
uncivilized, the uncultivated, the sche "black" did not follow and reflect the term in a n
ming, the incompetent, that it can be black cultural revolution in Jamaica in theory of id
contested, transformed and invested with that period. It was one of the ways in than an ide
a positive ideological value. The concept which those new subjects were consti "bad" me:
"black" is not the exclusive property of tuted. The people-the concrete individ takes plan
any particular social group or any single uals-had always been there. But as which is fi
discourse. To use the terminology of subjects-in-struggle for a new epoch in by the wa~
Laclau (1977) and Laclau and Mouffe history, they appeared for the first time. SClOUS proc
(1984), the term, despite its powerful Ideology, through an ancient category, The field (
resonances, has no necessary "class was constitutive of their oppositional for mechanisrr
belongingness." It has been deeply mation. mous" fiel
inserted in the past into the discourses of So the word itself has no specific class
racial distinction and abuse. It was, for connotation, though it does have a long
long, apparently chained into place in and not easily dismantled history. As
the discourses and practices of social and social movements develop a struggle lThe gene!
economic exploitation. In the period of around a particular program, meanings in linguistic
Jamaican history when the national which appear to have been fixed in place structuralist
bourgeoisie wished to make common forever begin to loose their moorings. In would be rec
Lacan and F,
cause with the masses in the fight for short, the meaning of the concept has be referred tc
formal political independence from the shifted as a result of the struggle around
2By the ter
colonizing power-a fight in which the the chains of connotations and the social a law or a fae
local bourgeoisie, not the masses, practices which made racism possible be positively
emerged as the leading social force through the negative construction of which can u
"black" was a sort of disguise. In the "blacks." By invading the heartland of dissolved and
the negative definition, the black move between diffe
cultural revolution which swept Jamaica
113
CSMC HALL
vhen for ment has attempted to snatch the fire of and social struggle. It is not free or
.w] edged. the term itself. Because "black" once independent of determinations. But it is
ve-black signified everything that was least to be not reducible to the simple determinacy
.enter of respected, it can now be affirmed as of any of the other levels of the social
to "the "beautiful," the basis of our positive formations in which the distinction
l experi social identity, which requires and between black and white has become
d under- engenders respect amongst us. "Black,'" politically pertinent and through which
cultural then, exists ideologically only in relation that whole "unconsciousness" of race has
lis is the to the contestation around those chains of been articulated. This process has real
ation, of meaning, and the social forces involved consequences and effects on how the
ity with in that contestation. whole social formation reproduces itself,
.sewhere, I could have taken any key concept, ideologically. The effect of the struggle
1S well as category or image around which groups over "black," if it becomes strong
.tafarian have organized and mobilized, around enough, is that it stops the society repro
ited as its which emergent social practices have ducing itself functionally, in that old
. the con developed. But I wanted to take a term way. Social reproduction itself becomes a
sitive rec which has a profound resonance for a contested process.
nee": the whole society, one around which the Contrary to the emphasis of
if a new whole direction of social struggle and Althusser's argument, ideology does not
.ing black political movement has changed' in the therefore only have the function of "re
n in the history of our own life times. I .wanted producing the social relations of produc
.rence of thereby to suggest that thinking that tion." Ideology also sets limits to the
-eflect the term in a nonreductionist way-within the degree to which a society-in-dominance
amaica in theory of ideology opens the field/to more can easily 1 smoothly and functionally
~ ways in than an idealistic exchange of"good" or reproduce itself. The notion that the
re consti "bad" meanings; or a struggle which ideologies are always-already inscribed
te individ takes place only in discourse; and one does not allow us to think adequately
e. But as which is fixed permanently and forever about the shifts of accentuation in lan
r epochin by the way in which particular uncon guage and ideology, which is a constant,
first time. scious processes are resolved in infancy. unending process-what Volosinov
category, The field of the ideological has its own (1930/1973) called the "multiaccentual
rtional for mechanisms; it is a "relatively autono ity of the ideological sign" or the "class
mous" field of constitution, regulation struggle in language." 0
ecific class
ave a long
iistory. As NOTES
a struggle lThe general term, "discourse theory," refers to a number of related, recent, theoretical developments
, meanings in linguistics and semiotics, and psychoanalytic theory, which followed the "break" made by
ed in place structuralist theory in the 1970s, with the work of Barthes and Althusser. Some examples in Britain
oorings. In would be recent work on film and discourse in Screen, critical and theoretical writing influenced by
Lacan and Foucault, and post-Derrida deconstructionism. In the U.S., many of these trends would now
oncept has
be referred to under the title of "post-modernism."
ogle around
2By the term, "articulation," I mean a connection or link which is not necessarily given in all cases, as
d the social
a law or a fact of life, but which requires particular conditions of existence to appear at all, which has to
m possible be positively sustained by specific processes, which is not "eternal" but has constantly to be renewed,
truction which can under some circumstances disappear or be overthrown, leading to the old linkages being
eartland of dissolved and new connections-re-articulations-being forged. It is also important that an articulation
.lack move- between different practices does not mean that they become identical or that the one is dissolved into the
114
other. Each retains its distinct determinations and conditions of existence. However, once an
articulation is made, the two practices can function together, not as an "immediate identity" (in th
language of Marx's "1857 Introduction") but as "distinctions within a unity."
3This idea is explicated in chapter 3 of Cultural Studies (Hall, forthcoming).
4This is the subject of chapter 5 of Cultural Studies (Hall, forthcoming).
sIn Lacan (1966/1977), the "Imaginary" signals a relationship of plenitude to the image. It is
opposed to the "Real" and the "Symbolic."
REFERENCES
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published 1965)
Althusser, L. (1971). Lenin and philosophy and other essays (B. Brewster, Trans.). London: New Left.
(Original work published 1970)
Althusser, L., & Balibar, E. (1970). Reading Capital (B. Brewster, Trans.). London: New Left.
(Original work published 1968)
Derrida, J. (1977). Of grammatology (G. C. Spivak, Trans.). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University D-Emp,
Press. based upor
Foucault, M. (1980). Power/knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings 1972-1977. (C. Kenneth E
Gordon, Ed.), (C. Gordon, L. Marshall, J. Mepham, & K Soper, Trans.). New York: Pantheon. quantitativ,
(Original work published 1972) the fifteen
Gramsci, A. (1971). Selections from the prison notebooks (Q. Hoare & G. Nowell-Smith, Trans.). New records ea.
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Hall, S. (forthcoming). With J. Slack, & L. Grossberg. Cultural Studies. London: Macmillan. ceptually
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Cultural Studies, 6, 132-170. operational
Lacan, J. (1977). Ecrits: A selection. (A. Sheridan, Trans.). New York: International. (Original work fifteen "hi
published 1966)
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' from n
For all pra
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Poulantzas, N. (1975). Political power and social classes (T. O'Hagan, Trans.). London: New Left. Mr. Cheseb
(Original work published 1968) munication
Thompson, E. P. (1978). The poverty of theory and other essays. New York: Monthly Review Press. lege of the C
Foulger wa
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Communicc
Trans.). New York: Seminar. (Original work published 1930)
at Storrs, (
Mr. Yannel
Temple Un
study was CI